Is 3'F too cold?

[countrygirl57]

We are having a cold night. Temps are going down to -16'C or 3 'F. Our coop is insulated, but we are wondering if we should keep the light on all night. Will keeping a light on confuse or harm our girls? Please any suggestions.

The coup is 10 X12 We have 23 hens 7 mos old.

 

[fordmommy]

I keep my 85 or 90 watt ( I can remember which) on all night when it gets so cold. It kinda does mess with them, I think. I don't think they like it. I have 15 chickens right now in my 6x12 coop.

 

[catdaddy66]

A red lamp would allow more darkness but still warm the coop. I don't know how warm it would get but any amount above 3 degrees is good, I would think. Then again, many birds are bred to tolerate cold, sometimes better than heat!

 

[jhm47]

Don't mess with the lighting. Our birds are out in uninsulated coops in -30F weather every winter. Doesn't hurt them a bit.

 

[CedarRidgeChicks]

We had -6F here Sat. night and I had no heat on my coop..everyone did fine and several even layed the next day..of course it warmed to above freezing yesterday..it probably wasn't that temp.for very long.

 

[digitS']

Several years ago, I would keep a light on in the coop 24/7 during the days when temperatures were down around or below zero °F.

My thinking was that the birds could move around, eat and drink during the very cold hours of the day or night. Sitting on the roost in the dark and cold couldn't be good for them with that much cold.

I no longer leave the light on continuously but just have a regular lighting schedule. The chickens have about as much light in the winter as they would have during the summer months.

Sitting in the dark for more than 12 hours doesn't seem to be a very good idea to me. But, since the coop already has only about 9 hours of darkness, I think that's okay even when it is very cold. If it drops to 30° below zero, I may change my mind

.

Steve

 

[fordmommy]

I forgot to say in my post that is a red light that's 85-90 watt.

 

[jhm47]

Chickens are very well insulated, and if they are in a draft free place, they can stand extremely cold temps. Think about wild birds, like hawks, owls, pheasants, grouse, etc that spend every minute of their lives outside, often in trees with high winds blowing. They also don't have access to readily available food like our domestic chickens do.

 

[felidaet]

It usually does not get very cold here. We did have a few nights in December that were a little below 10 F. I hung a heat lamp directly above my waterer to keep it from freezing. Since the waterer is in the coop I am sure it heated the coop a little bit (but it is not insulated). I only used it for a few days. I did notice a significant increase in egg laying a few days later that lasted for about 3 weeks. We had an unusually warm January. It did not get below freezing the entire month!

 

[CARS]

For Christ's sakes they ARE CHICKENS. NOT PETS!!

They will be fine. Eat the eggs, eat the meat.


(why does this come up every day????)