How cold is TOO cold for a chicken?

[Mrs MIA]

Update:
Currently 0°F/-17.7°C outside, and 5 girls are still sleeping outside. The 40w bulb couldn't handle the sudden drop in temps (that's 25-30° lower than yesterday), so I'll have to up the wattage to keep the waterer from freezing, but that's all they have so far.

 

[Lunachick]

Our winters can get pretty cold, last winter was mild and my birds (3) were fine in a puny little half wood, half hardware cloth set up, although I was worried and wrapped the coop up with bath mats for extra protection.

This year is different, they got a new coop - much larger - it was an old shed, and I got an extra bird, then i lost her to illness, and back to three.

I'm hoping they can keep each other warm in a bigger coop. I'll have to watch and see.

I also have a large heated dog bowl I use and that seems to give off a lot of extra warmth for them. I wrap clear plastic around the run for a wind break so they can have some dry dirt to bathe in during winter weather.

Mrs A-K I don't know how you do it up there

It must be funny reading all our worries about COLD when you really have it COLD! Oh yeah, and you Canadians too must be snickering at us down here!

 

[lovemychix]

We get some pretty nasty weather in Iowa and I was concerned also. My neighbors....who are the sweetest people in the world....had chickens for years and they told me that as long as its a draft free coop they will be ok. I still have a heat lamp ready just because I'm a big softie.

 

[Mrs MIA]

Lunachick, I'm beginning to wonder at my choice of residence myself. This is WAY early for temps this low (-1.7°F and still dropping) Last year this time we were still in the mid-30s.

I'm having a devil of a time keeping water from freezing, but so far none of the chickens are having issues.

The issues I have with trying to keep the chickens warm is that I've had the heat lamps burn out, or power go out, in the middle of the night. If they're not used to the colder temps, they're not going to do well in that situation. I'm a big softie, too, but I had to draw the line after the $400 electric bill. I can't afford that.

 

[BeardedChick]

I like this compost barrel idea. Will you have a convenient access lid to dump the daily offerings into the barrel? I have this vision of a piece of tubing fitted to the lid and going through a wall to the outdoors. V I would think that a metal compost barrel would get very warm, I hope you'll let us know how this works out!

Now that you mention it, I think the barrel could get too warm, too. Need to keep a thermometer in the compost and monitor the heat. I thought I might be able to use shredded paper in the droppings pit and could adjust the amount to try and keep the compost at about the right green/brown balance so it's not toooo hot.

I want to build a new roost w/ a shallow droppings pit... It would be cool to build it so that the droppings pit has a hole at one end of that you could just scrape the daily offerings into to the hole, and the compost barrel would sit under there to catch them.

Hmmmmm. It will be an interesting experiment.​

 

[chick2good4u]

Mrs. AK-Bird-Brain :

Update:
Currently 0°F/-17.7°C outside, and 5 girls are still sleeping outside. The 40w bulb couldn't handle the sudden drop in temps (that's 25-30° lower than yesterday), so I'll have to up the wattage to keep the waterer from freezing, but that's all they have so far.

0°F ? I'm wearing a coat and it's 47°F! I was worried about if my girls would be warm enough with 1 heat lamp tonight because it's getting down to 33°F tonight. Guess I'm a little over worried

 

[joebryant]

How cold is TOO cold for a chicken?
When it's too cold for me to even consider going out to see it they're alright.

 

[Mrs MIA]

Quote:

0°F ? I'm wearing a coat and it's 47°F! I was worried about if my girls would be warm enough with 1 heat lamp tonight because it's getting down to 33°F tonight. Guess I'm a little over worried

I think that's the point I've been trying to get across...

It's below 0F now, and the birds are still outside.

 

[chick2good4u]

At that point I would be wondering if their little brain cells were powerfull enough to tell them to get somewhere warmer! Either that or you have some brave birds!

 

[chick2good4u]

Mrs. AK-Bird-Brain :

Update:
Currently 0°F/-17.7°C outside, and 5 girls are still sleeping outside. The 40w bulb couldn't handle the sudden drop in temps (that's 25-30° lower than yesterday), so I'll have to up the wattage to keep the waterer from freezing, but that's all they have so far.

By the way, what happened to the bulb? Did it go out or what? Sorry for the ignorance, I live in middle TN where we usually don't see negative number temperatures.​