How do you heat your coops

[bruceha2000]

DE really doesn't get rid of mites. It helps dry out the dampness, which just about it. I use sevin in their dust baths. That stuff will kill any external parasites FAST.

Thanks for the correction. Hard to remember everything when it is ALL new!

 

[aoxa]

re: heating with wood.
Depends on how big the stove is, how efficient it is and how much volume you are heating. Nice and warm near the stove and mezmerizing. Like watching chickens   Lie on the floor watching the fire and you'll fall asleep!

New house (to us) last Nov., supposed to have a working woodstove. 1 week before closing we're told it doesn't work (top cracked). So we got a new stove but were limited on our choices for replacement because the flue into the chimney was pretty low. Most stove pipes come out the top or if they can come out the back, they were still too high. We went with the Harmon 300, it has optional "short legs" and heats our ~1600 sq ft well ASSUMING you don't want the bedrooms at high temp. We sleep cool so it works very well. The heat goes up the stairwell at one end of the house (the stove is at the other end, I'd rather it were in the middle but oh well). You can certainly get powered wall and floor registers if you want to actively move air to specific places.

The "new technology" stoves don't use catalytics to burn off the stuff that causes creosote, they have "secondary air" burn (no power, just convection). There is a plate along the top of the burn chamber with a row of holes like you would see in a gas burner and when the chamber is hot,  there will sometimes be flames starting at them that makes it look like a gas burner.  Burn through the window looks more like Aurora Borealis than a fire. That is the gasified wood burning, there are no flames on the wood once it heats up and zero smoke out the chimney. You get a lot more heat IN the house per cord of wood than with "old tech" stoves that didn't burn it all and need very high stack temps to pull it out, then depositing creosote on the chimney walls as it cools.

We get about 8 hours out of ours but the coals in the ash on the bottom will be there HOURS and HOURS after the wood is gone. Just open the air regulator, rake the coals into a pile and put some small stuff on the pile and larger wood on top of that. Poof, instant fire. When running it 24x7, morning is about 5 min of work. Open the regulator, put some small-medium sized wood on the coals. Come back in 5 minutes and put in some larger pieces. Come back awhile later, load it up and close the regulator down to 'low'. We remove the ash maybe every 2 weeks. ALWAYS leave at least an inch (25 mm for you intelligent folks) of ash in the fire box. This is the LAST place one wants to be really tidy, the ash holds the coals.

It is the fall and spring "time for a little heat" fires that are time consuming. With no coals, you need to start from scratch every time and in our stove that takes about 45 minutes. Not continual, but you have to start with a lot smaller stuff and then work up.


We also have a Caframo Ecofan 812. Sits on top of the stove, heat runs the fan. NOT a big blow but circulation. Don't know how to scientifically figure out how much it is really doing for us. Claim is 150 cu ft per minute. Oddly, I found it cheapest online at a marine chandlery. It is for use on WOOD STOVES. Boat would have to be pretty big to have a wood stove



This is SO way off topic. Sorry. Hmmm, OK, you can bring the chickens into the living room to stay warm by the wood stove if it is really cold out instead of heating the coop.  I intend to do NEITHER. I'm going to cover all but the top few inches of hardware cloth with plexiglas so they still have ventilation AND light. The coop is a stall in a barn, the front wall is 8' from the outside barn wall with SOME windows and it faces west so there isn't all that much light until mid afternoon anyway. Plexi will make for much more expensive eggs but will let in a lot more light than "clear" plastic.

Our fire is a furnace type system. It's in the basement, so it wouldn't be fun at all. We do have a double sided fireplace in the living/dining room, but it doesn't look safe to me. Thankfully we don't do the work of starting the fire for the most part, as my parents-in-law live with us through winter. My FIL takes care of the wood. He likes working for his heat, but he doesn't get up as early as I do, so it's always FREEZING come morning. It's really hard to get out of bed when it's that cold.



Thanks for all the details!

 

[bruceha2000]

Ok ,,,what kind of water heaters do you [guys and gals]use???? Getting close to cooler weather and curious!!!Kevin

Haven't used it YET seeing as how I just got my first chickens ever in June but I got a stock tank heater (Amazon). They have built in thermostats and the one I got can sit on the bottom or float. My birds drink from 5 saddle type nipples on a 3/4" pipe in the coop. One end is connected by tubing to the 5 gallon bucket outside the coop. No mess in the coop if it leaks and easy to fill. I have a VERY small submersible pump in the bucket that connects, again via tubing, to the other end of the 3/4" pipe in the coop. I plan to put it on a timer to run every (don't know yet, will have to be "try and see what works") hours. It will just push the water back up into the bucket through the "main" tube. The pump isn't connected now. I just realized I have no pictures so people can see what I am talking about. Guess I need to get on that.

 

[karlamaria]

My chickens love the out doors even when it's freezing out, because the pen is enclosed from wind, snow and rain. They stay dry and there feet stay dry. We used tarps on all sides of the pen last year, this year with the new pen built with a slanted roof we are using thick clear plastic to enclose it. I found when I cleaned my coop every few weeks completly there was no moisture . Never had a problem with moisture. Oh and after a mini molt, my girls laid through the winter. Tin can heaters are awesome , never frozen water.

 

[bruceha2000]

Our fire is a furnace type system. It's in the basement, so it wouldn't be fun at all. We do have a double sided fireplace in the living/dining room, but it doesn't look safe to me.

Well, that certainly is nothing like what I was expecting. Yeah, not fun, just hike down there and throw in wood. I wonder how efficient they are.
Plus, basements tend to be more humid than upper floors, not a good place to store wood.

Regular fireplaces (even with glass doors) are heat REMOVERS, you can feel the radiant heat if you are right in front of them but most of it is going up the chimney. You'll get some "heat storage" in the masonry/stone but not much. They don't burn efficiently and pollute like crazy. They pull the required "feed" air from the house through whatever "gaps" in outside walls the air can find. Net heat loss, though nice to look at. I wouldn't use it to heat the house unless you can put a stove in it and probably a liner or stove pipe all the way to the top if it looks dangerous (presuming you mean the masonry doesn't seem to be in good shape).

Off soapbox now

 

[Gifa]

You don't REALLY mean "as low as 60 degrees" right? You must mean something a lot lower. 60 degrees is short sleeve shirt weather.

Bruce

Not as low as... Kansas City gets as low as -10F some winters... as low as 10F degrees most winters... but a 60F degree week in January is not unheard of around here.

Out of the 17 years I have lived here... only 2 or 3 years were bitter bitter cold, 5 or 6 of those years were extremely mild... as in short sleeve shirt weather. Last winter for example, we only had two or three weeks of sub freezing daytime temps and were regularly in the 50's and 60s. Some people even had to mow their lawns in February.

 

[aoxa]

Well, that certainly is nothing like what I was expecting. Yeah, not fun, just hike down there and throw in wood. I wonder how efficient they are. Plus, basements tend to be more humid than upper floors, not a good place to store wood. Regular fireplaces (even with glass doors) are heat REMOVERS, you can feel the radiant heat if you are right in front of them but most of it is going up the chimney. You'll get some "heat storage" in the masonry/stone but not much. They don't burn efficiently and pollute like crazy. They pull the required "feed" air from the house through whatever "gaps" in outside walls the air can find. Net heat loss, though nice to look at. I wouldn't use it to heat the house unless you can put a stove in it and probably a liner or stove pipe all the way to the top if it looks dangerous (presuming you mean the masonry doesn't seem to be in good shape). Off soapbox now

It's crazy. We store all the wood in the same barn as the chickens, though some is stored in the basement with a dehumidifier. My barn is so packed full of wood now, and I HATE it. It's in my way. I can hardly do chores without bumping into it. I wouldn't mind having a little stove like you have. My parents have one - and it's beautiful. The furnace is very safe, but the one upstairs would not be used. It has only been used maybe twice in 20 years (according to the in-laws who we purchased the house from - and who live with us a few months out of the year - which by the way drives me crazy). I think they have closed off the fireplace so no heat escapes. I can't say it for sure, but they are very energy conscious, so I assume they have. As for the stone/pipe, it's all boxed in. The living room was added after the fireplace was installed, so it is all brick like you would see on the side of a house, but they made it so it is double sided. It's hideous too. We really need to redecorate. It's only been since April, and we have so much going on. To put this back on topic:

For my brooder, I line all around with straw/hay during the winter if I am brooding. It keeps the heat contained better. Works well! Plus you can sit and watch the chicks on the hay bales They aren't all around it here because I moved them out for the summer. We will get fresh ones for winter.

 

[PNWGirl]

re: heating with wood.
Depends on how big the stove is, how efficient it is and how much volume you are heating. Nice and warm near the stove and mezmerizing. Like watching chickens

Lie on the floor watching the fire and you'll fall asleep!............................

While your post may have been off topic, I enjoyed it! I have been thinking about a wood stove (friends have them) and really liked the detail of your post. Makes me want to get one even more

LOL!!

Sheila

 

[aoxa]

While your post may have been off topic, I enjoyed it!  I have been thinking about a wood stove (friends have them) and really liked the detail of your post.  Makes me want to get one even more e   LOL!!

Sheila

Backup heat is always good if you are feeling lazy too

But I like the idea of wood if the power goes out, though not sure if it would work if ours is a furnace type fire place.

 

[PNWGirl]

Backup heat is always good if you are feeling lazy too

But I like the idea of wood if the power goes out, though not sure if it would work if ours is a furnace type fire place.

A friend of mine has that and has this thing that plugs into a deep cycle battery, so that the fan- of her fireplace insert- still works in power outages. Not sure if that would work in your case......

Know what you mean about a back up

Sheila