I'm very confused whether to heat my coop or not, as well as having proper ventilation.

What is -10F in Celcius terms? Now that I have had heat in there will I do damage to them if now all of a sudden I take it off the timer? I'm so worried about them. Also, what about when the sun heats their coop to around zero, but it's still -14C outside???? I have no control of that. My neighbors use only scratch and table scraps for feed that is another one of my questions. Is it ok to mix scratch and layer mash half and half?

-10 F is -23 C.

The basic rule of thumb many of us go by is no supplementary heat until -20 F, which is -29 C. The outside temperature being different than your coop temperature isn't a problem. That's due to the insulation and is just fine. In the wild, some animals insulate themselves naturally by digging into the leaves or making burrows or even digging out holes in the snow to capture their body heat. Your coop has just done this for your chickens, and they will appreciate it. They will probably choose to be outside some, and inside some--trust that they're smart enough to come inside when they get too cold or wet. They aren't the smartest animals, but they aren't super dumb, either. When they get too cold, they'll seek shelter and huddle together for warmth. My hens run outside even during cold, rainy days. Then they come inside to warm up. I leave their pop-door open no matter what the weather. Some days they spend the entire time outside, sometimes they spend the entire day inside. Trust their instincts.

Your hens' bodies will adapt to the cold. If you are concerned about your heat lamp, wean them off it slowly. First, turn it off on the warmest days. Then turn it off on slightly colder days, etc. Make sure that your hens have nice wide roosts and plenty of bedding.

The main trigger for frostbite is not cold alone: it's cold+moisture. That's where the ventilation comes in. You want vents high in your coop so that they draw moist air out the top of the coop. This will help prevent frostbite. You can also help prevent frostbite by massaging Vaseline into the combs. Massage it in well, since there is some evidence that it's the massaging action stimulating blood flow more than the Vaseline itself that helps. If possible, try to find a balance between enough ventilation and no drafts. Sniff the air, is there a smell of ammonia? Touch the wood. Is the wood moist at all? Ammonia smell and damp wood are dead give-aways that you need more ventilation and drier bedding.

You should not worry about your coop being too big. I've never heard of any problems from a too-big coop, but a too-small coop is very bad for chickens and will lead to all sorts of problems like pecking and cannibalization. The more room, the better, I say!

As far as feed--your neighbors are not providing their hens with good nutrition. Scratch and table scraps are pretty much the candy bars and potato chips of the chicken world. Your commercial layer feed has been formulated to contain all the nutrients that the hens need to lay eggs. If you mix it half with scratch, you are throwing off that nutrient balance. Your chickens will get too much of some things and not enough of others. Scratch and table scraps are treats, and should be used as such. Remember, a chicken has a lot less body mass than a human, and eats a lot less volume. So a handful of scratch or half a peanut butter sandwich to a chicken is a large percentage of her diet for the day, and you've thrown her nutrition off. Yes, throw them your table scraps, and use scratch for treats. But don't let it make up a huge percentage of what they eat.
 
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Thanks so very much for all this info I greatly appreciate it!! How wide of a roost do they need. I think ours is 1 1/2 inch doweling. How much bedding and what do you use? I have wood shavings on the bottom then hay and straw on top. About 4-6 inches. It's hard to keep lots at the door because it opens into the coop so it moves it each time.
How much is a treat as now I don't want to over do it.
The door opens at 7 am and closes at 5:30 pm. Is that ok? We do not have any vents up high as I thought we were supposed to keep wind out.
Please tell me if I should be changing things. Maybe I can send a picture to show you if I can figure out how to do that.
My chickens are almost always outside. They've got dirt and gravel under their coop and they are there tons. It's weird. They still dust bath even in this cold.
If you have any other info for me please let me know. Would it be ok to just have a hanging feeder in their coop with layer mash for them. I don't go and feed any specific times I just make sure it's always full. What are your thoughts. We've got a heated waterer and I change that every 2-3 days. I also have oyster shell in there in a dish for them. Am I missing anything??
 
I also keep other birds in conjunction within this loft.

My pigeon egg hatched on Dec 26 or 27 2012. The other one has pipped and should hatch Dec 27 or 28. Things look good so far. If you let your birds acclimatize (ACCLIMATIZE is the key word) you can leave them out in extremely cold temperatures -10F is fairly normal for us in Canada winter months. No heat; no insulation in my loft.

I did provide a Styrofoam cooler as a nest cover for these Squabs. When the squabs grew to the point where the parents could no longer incubate them.
Here is a picture of the squabs I took recently.
I will be removing the cooler in a few more days.













That cooler is great idea in
thumbsup.gif
cold for babies !
 
Thanks so very much for all this info I greatly appreciate it!! How wide of a roost do they need. I think ours is 1 1/2 inch doweling. How much bedding and what do you use? I have wood shavings on the bottom then hay and straw on top. About 4-6 inches. It's hard to keep lots at the door because it opens into the coop so it moves it each time.
How much is a treat as now I don't want to over do it.
The door opens at 7 am and closes at 5:30 pm. Is that ok? We do not have any vents up high as I thought we were supposed to keep wind out.
Please tell me if I should be changing things. Maybe I can send a picture to show you if I can figure out how to do that.
My chickens are almost always outside. They've got dirt and gravel under their coop and they are there tons. It's weird. They still dust bath even in this cold.
If you have any other info for me please let me know. Would it be ok to just have a hanging feeder in their coop with layer mash for them. I don't go and feed any specific times I just make sure it's always full. What are your thoughts. We've got a heated waterer and I change that every 2-3 days. I also have oyster shell in there in a dish for them. Am I missing anything??

You want your roosts to be fairly fat. The chickens will be happier with a 2" wide board. Round roosts are actually really difficult for chickens--you want them to be flat or wide ovals. So put in a 2 x 2 board instead of the doweling. Their feet might also get too cold in the winter with the doweling.

Your bedding thickness sounds fine. You don't need to do the straw and hay, though. 4-6" of pine shavings is fine, and a lot easier to clean out, and a LOT cheaper, with hay prices this year.

Two cups of food is all the food four chickens will eat in a day, so I'd say a handful of scratch per day spread between all four birds is about right. Think of the fact that each bird only eats about 1/4 pound of layer pellets a day, and that your treat is in proportion to that. And, like treats for kids, you can give more if it's veggies or lean meat or something else healthy for them. Also remember that chickens really have no need for treats--they get everything they need from their layer ration. The treats are really for YOU--they are fun to give and help you bond with your birds, but nutritionally they are snacks.

Your coop door timing sounds just fine for this time of year. You will find that you'll have to have it close later when the day lengthens, since the hens won't go to bed until dusk. In the summer, my hens don't go to bed until 9pm.

It's good that your chickens are dust bathing. The dust baths help keep them free from mites and other external parasites.

Yes, it's OK that you have a feeder hanging 24/7. You don't need to ration layer hens' food--they do a good job of regulating their food intake and you rarely see a fat hen. If you decide to get meat chickens some day, then you will need to ration that feed. But don't worry about your layer hens.

I don't think you're missing anything. You sound like a good chicken manager. DON'T PANIC. THEY'RE CHICKENS. THEY WILL BE JUST FINE.

Did I get all your questions? Do you have others?

eta--almost forgot: yes, some ventilation up near the roof would be helpful. If you don't have any vents at all up there, you can probably drill some holes up near the roof. They need to be fairly big, like 2", and then covered with hardware cloth that's 1/2" or less (NOT chicken wire) to keep out predators.
 
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We have five square feet of ventilation at the 2 1/2 on each eves on east and west sides but I can close off 2 square feet if it gets wicked cold. We are on the top of the north face of a "hill" and it's quite windy here so I positioned the coop in the lowest part of the yard and so that (our prevailing) north wind hits the most enclosed side of the coop and sheathed the whole structure in house wrap to keep it draft free.

A 2x4 on it's wide side is a good roost size for cold climates as it allows the chickens to tuck their feet completely under there bodies. And just 6-8 inches of pine bedding on a coop floor will increase the temperature of the coop by at least 5 degrees. (it raised ours 8 degrees!).
 
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Ventilation.......

Is there a general rule of thumb for how many square feet of ventilation holes/windows you should have per cubic foot of space & number of chickens? I've always wondered if I have enough.

I have 6 hens. Then hen house is about 4' x 4' x 4', with 3 nest boxes attached to one of the sides. All my ventilation is on the one wall oposite from the nest boxes, which is also the side most protected from wind. I have one window that's about 10" tall x 30" wide, at the top of the wall, and the door is about 10" x 12" on the same wall, and the door remains open 24/7. There is also a little ventilation where the slanted roof meets the walls on the window side, and on the nest box side. Also, the roosts are right at the height of the window. Does this sound like enough airflow? Sometimes I think maybe not, but then sometimes I think it's fine since they're always roosting by the window.

And then sometimes I worry that setup is too drafty for them. I live in California, so our temperatures rarely get down to freezing at night. We've had a cold snap lately, but I've been told if the chickens get really cold, they'll huddle together in the nest boxes or in a corner. In the summer they spread out on the two roosts, but I've noticed in the winter they huddle together on one...except for one hen that always sleeps by herself on the front rim of a nest box...is it wierd that she does that?

I'm planning on adding a new "wing" onto the hen house that will be maybe 4' wide, 2' deep, and 4.5' tall, this area will just be for two or three tiered roosts, to replace the existing two roosts by the window. My thought in doing this is mostly to get the roosts out of the draft of the window, and to enclose the area under the roosts with chicken wire so all their droppings will be confined to one 2'x4' area that can be cleaned out through a side trapdoor. (I saw that roost thing in an advertisement for some pre-made coops)

Let me know if you need pictures of the henhouse I described and I can add them when I get home from work.

Thanks for your input!

Susan
 
Wow, I wish I joined this long ago, I am getting so much great info. Thanks everyone!! I had no idea their roosts should be flat.
I will get my husband on that this weekend. I feel so badly for them we've had it wrong this whole time. Also, just having the pine shavings, without hay and straw, didn't know that either. The whole ventilation thing just totally confused me, as we try to have it completely sealed and then it says to have holes in the top??? I just thought that all the heat would be escaping and I thought the whole point was to try keep them warm with an insulated coop. We've been ok so far, as the door is open a lot and the main door has a small space under it, so I guess that has been enough ventilation. We do have 2 large windows that open, but for the winter time my husband has put styrofoam over them for insulation. I will try to figure out how to insert a photo of our coop so that perhaps my questions can make a bit more sense.
Oh, there we go, I did it. So this is the coop we've got for 4 chickens. and a very large fenced run for them. Under the coop is dirt for dust bathing.
Of course we are covered in snow right now, it is no longer looking green like this. See how the door opens "in", this makes it very difficult to have bedding there. I have a small layer of hay that I flatten out so the door goes over it, otherwise they would not have anything at all. So, with seeing these photos, do you still think I need the ventilation up top as well?


This is their roost I was talking about. They are much bigger chickens now, and we have 2 more. I will see what my husband can do to make it a flat 2x4 for them. Again, I would greatly like to thank everyone that responds to my questions, I have already slept easier knowing some answers you've given me. I have slowly taken out the heat lamp, I am down to only 2 hours in the morning, and tomorrow I will shut it off completely. Are they ok to be out in the snow, frost and dirt when it is so cold?
Sorry, again I have a multitude of questions. I truly appreciate all of you and to "walking on sunshine" -- thanks for the thorough answers to ALL of my questions.
 
Just think about all the birds that winter over in your ara without any problem! I would not bother with a heat lamp unless the temperature dips below zero (Fahrenheit). Aside from being unnecessary its also a fire hazard.

Recommended coop ventilation is one square foot per bird so five square feet (a completely opened 2x2.5 window) for five chickens. You can get by with 3-4 but the 3" holes drilled into the sides of many coops and probably even the opened space between the rafter is completely inadequate. Chickens give off a great deal of moisture when they breath which can make the coop damp and cause frost bite.


There are lots of helpful coop planning and building articles in the "learning Center" tab on this site including the difference between ventilation and a draft.
 
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I knew Styrofoam is a bad idea for chickens (my pigeons have no issue they are smarter). I also however discovered ring neck pheasant are no smarter than chickens when it comes to Styrofoam (I should have guessed that however).

Good judgment comes from experience; Experience comes from bad judgment.

I since covered all the exposed areas of the cooler with veneer from an old interior bedroom door.

Guess there will be some Styrofoam filler in the pheasant poop for the next few days.

Every once in awhile my free range birds enjoy a feed of Styrofoam with out my permission.

It just sometimes comes into your life in the form of a piece of insulation that blows on to your property or a foam cup.

The birds never seem to suffer any ill effects from it over the years. I know Styrofoam definitely has some sort of carcinogen in my estimation. I would NOT recommend it as a treat for your birds; They seem to regard it as one..


 
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