Live in a Very Cold Winter area? Post link to your personal page here!

[CityGirlintheCountry]

Gotcha. I may have to just let her broody away. My attempts at breaking her don't seem to be working. I need to tuck a few eggs under her and let her have her way.
I had the brooder in the house for about a month for this lot. I suppose I can haul it back in and have house chickens for a while.

If I'm doing the math right a clutch set now should hatch out right before Christmas. Merry Christmas to me, I suppose.

 

[vermontgal]

Hi Patandchickens and all - this thread is off topic! (sorry to hear about the icy flooding, too). Here's a return to the original post.

Yes, this is my first year with chickens, but I've adopted a data-based approach to the chicken coop. Here is some info about how it is going so far - and I'll update the page as I track coop temperatures, improvements, etc.

https://www.backyardchickens.com/web/viewblog.php?id=7883-vermont-winter-coop

By the way - yes, I do this with my house, too -- I track the amount of fuel I use to heat the house vs. the local heating degree days. I do energy-conservation-related work for a living - but quite honestly a lot of this is from an economic perspective.

 

[LynneP]

It's a great idea, vermontgal. I keep track of eggs and temps, but I don't have a database. So far, the insulated coop is staying several degrees above the uninsulated part of the barn. Yesterday was the only day that the hens were relucatant to go out until the afternoon when the sun appeared, but I left the pop door ope and was relieved when they decided life was too short to miss some air and sunlight. Today is our third day of shovelling and we'll use a roof rake to diminish snow load. Tough November!

 

[ole-crone]

I don't have any charts or a personal page but I can report on what we've been doing.

How much light does that rope light put out? I had thought of hanging commercial grade christmas lights in the storage area of the chicken yard but hadn't thought about a rope light for inside the coop. THANKS.

We have a larger area (1 separate coop and 4 inter-connected coops) and @80 chickens. We have been zone 4 in the past but we do seem to be warming up and have been moved to zone 4.5/5 on planting charts. The coops' walls are built from a mixture of wood, cinderblock and plastic over wire as we've added on to increase space. Each of the 4 coops have a plain light.

I'm not a fan of heat lamps. We had some older baby chicks shatter one last year. We managed to gather up most of the shards, however it was stressful wondering what had been eaten. Dh has decided he doesn't like regular light bulbs in the coops and prefers heavy duty. All of the heavy duty work lights I've seen here are 75 watts. I don't want that much power going to the coops.

As for extending daylight, we had it set for 14 hours but I think it gives the chickens too much time confined to their coops. I've noticed some blood on the feeders suggesting some rough-housing, but I can't figure out which chicken was injured - they all look fine. Dh says he put in the lights we had on hand which are 75 watt regulars, but he'll replace them with 45 florescents.

Since each door is human-sized, we hang quilts in the winter over the opening. That enables the chickens (and me) to easily move in and out but keeps out much of the cold.

I've been working for over a month to get chickens moved into the main coop structure (the four) and then I'll work on getting the 4 areas down to three so their body heat can help. I have @10 more chickens left in the separate coop (roosters and a few silkies).

We don't make the coops airtight but try to find and cover any draft-causing openings. The most airtight coop has a tendency to smell 'urine-y' which isn't good. Rule of thumb for a rabbitry is if you can smell urine, there are enough fumes to damage lungs - I figure this is true with chickens as well. So, I try to encourage air flow but to move it (and fumes) up and out rather than around the hens.

 

[Reinbeau]

Quote:
I think you included a state up there that most definitely has extreme temperatures in the winter. Our climate is hardly on par with Virginia or Alabama! Many times it's colder and snowier here at our home in Massachusetts than it is at our home up in Maine. We've just come through a bitter cold spell for November, and February is no walk in the park, either. Just wanted to point out that our Northern Clime winters are pretty hard to deal with - of course you can out-cold us, but don't try to make us seem warmer than we are.

 

[patandchickens]

Quote:
LOL. I know that, I didn't mean they were all the same

But how cold does it get in the coldest part of Mass. as a winter low. Maybe -10 F? Not really so cold...

Correct me if I'm wrong,

Pat

 

[ole-crone]

Or is cold relative?

When we lived in So CA we broke out the heavy winter coats at 60 F. Here, the kids start wearing shorts when the temps hit zero again after being -20 and below.

I can hardly wait for the really cold to set in because my aches and pains go away. They are worse while the temps are changing and heading down.

I wonder if the chickens are the same way? We smile as people in warmer climes are concerned that it is getting down into the 20s when we know that is 'basking in the sun' for our gals. BUT our galss are used to being colder so chickens in both locations feel just as cold. Make sense or did I blow the description?

 

[Reinbeau]

Quote:
LOL. I know that, I didn't mean they were all the same

But how cold does it get in the coldest part of Mass. as a winter low. Maybe -10 F? Not really so cold...

Correct me if I'm wrong,

Pat

Well, I guess this is an 'outcold you' thing: -10 is pretty darn cold (and it's been colder); my point is putting MA in the same category as VA or AK is a stretch, and the grouping implied they were somehow all mild climates. Once you go below zero does it really matter how much colder a chicken (or a person) can stand it? And it can stay at zero or below for a couple of weeks at a time - hardly anything that's going to happen in New Orleans or Jackson, MI.

Cold is cold.

 

[vermontgal]

Hi all - y'know - gardeners use the gardening zone system for a reason. The zones refer to the typical low temperature for the winter, the temperature that perennials and woody plants need to be able to withstand to live there. I think the zones are divided by 5 degree-F increments. This is based on the average annual low temperature for the area.

The part of Vermont where I live is zone 4
Coastal Maine is zone 5 with a few spots of zone 6.
Inland Maine (Skowhegan) is zone 4.
Coastal Mass is zone 6 and nearly all of inland Mass is zone 5.
Some parts of Ontario, Canada are zone 5, but most are zone 4 or colder.
Alabama is zone 7-8.
Virginia is zone 6-8, with a few areas of zone 5 in the mountains.

Here's a link. http://www.usna.usda.gov/Hardzone/ushzmap.html

Here is a link to find your zone by zip code.
http://www.gardenweb.com/zones/zip.cgi

Edited to add: My part of Vermont is zone 4b. It usually has a low of -22 or -25 F but -30 F would be really, really unusual. A friend of mine 35 miles away is on the edge of zone 4a-3b - and where he lives, he definitely hits -30 or -35 F.

 

[cicene mete]

According to that map, Uxbridge, Ontario is zone 5a, which is the same as Western Massachusetts, and not nearly as cold as other parts of New England. From the way you were talking about it, I assumed you lived in Nunavut!! So I guess there won't be any out-colding after all. Just razzing you

I know there are several BYC members from Alaska, and I remember reading about one who just has an insulated coop with no heat lamps. I guess if you get the right breed, chickens are extremely sturdy, and a heck of a lot sturdier than we people are.