i am thinking of adding large plastic (clear) tarp to the sides of the coop to keep it semi-warm. But would this help at all? It would stop almost all winds and rain, but would this also help with them laying eggs sence it will not b as cold in the coop. i am also keeping in mind ventilation so it wont get stinky. anyone else have ideas? But i do not have electricity going to the coop.
It was 5 degrees here today in northern Indiana. I have no insulation or heat in my coop, just 6-8 inches of wood shavings and 6 hens. Today I got 6 eggs! I have no clue why? They have not slowed down all that much. Tomorrow I will probably get 4-5 eggs. The least I have gotten was 3 in one day and the temps then were -10 degrees. They get layer feed, scratch mixed with a little BOSS and I will toss in greens and leftovers on occasion. Oh at least once a week, they get freeze dried mealworms! Can you say "spoiled" chickens?
We just put a thermonmeter in our coop to track temp and humidity. What I found out suprised me. We have 21 pulltes and out of them 14 are laying. I thought coop temps were higher than outside but I was wrong. Our coop temp inside are around a degree or two higher than outside temps. We have no lights in our coop and it is very ventalated. You can see picks of it on the chickens blog in my sig. We just put in a pop door before we used the people door and kept that open all day rain or shine. I wanted to keep the coop a bit warmer and alot dryer so tha pop door got cut in. That has helped with laying also as it is darker in there and not so open to see. Chickens like to hide to lay eggs at least our do.
