How do you keep your chickens warm in the winter?

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What are the low temperatures for your climate in the winter? How is your coop set up?
 
Hi and welcome to BYC from northern Michigan
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Fortunately given a good coop with no drafts and good ventilation chickens can keep themselves warm. The climate up here ranges down to -20 and I have not ever had even frostbite.
 
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from Ohio!

Many chicken breeds tolerate cold better than heat. As said above, ventilation, ventilation, ventilation and a place to protect from drafts and the chickens do the rest.
 
I have speckled sussexs. Do you mean what chickens go into at night or like the pen and the thing they go into at night.
 
I agree. They come complete, from Mother Nature with a down coat. They sleep on their feet. Unless you experience sub-zero F weather, for weeks on end, there isn't anything much to do, other than the common sense shelter that they need. A good solid, predator proof, hurricane resistant, blizzard resistant coop. Sealing it up tight, in the vain attempt to "hold heat in" is not recommended. Chickens exhale a lot of moisture and their poop is moisture laden. That ammonia filled, gaseous, humid air needs to be able to escape, ie, be allowed to vent out. With that? Your good. They'll be just fine. Chickens have been kept in New England, the upper Mid-West and Canada for a few hundred years now. They aren't sissies. Well, at least the old standard breeds aren't. LOL
 
I have Speckled Sussex and they tolerate the cold well. It rarely gets below zero here, but they have been fine in the teens and single didgets. Where are you, how cold are you talking about?
 

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