Michigan Thread - all are welcome!

[1muttsfan]

Hi Chevelier , welcome to BYC and the Michigan thread

 

[ChevalierNoir]

Alright Michigan friends, I have a question for you.

How do you prepare for winter?

Do you insulate your coop at all? What about temporarily walling off part of the run during winter?

 

[chickflick]

We did insulate, but wouldn't do it again. Invites the mice to make it their home. Number one thing, your coop has to have good ventilation, without having drafts. We wrap our run in tarps for the winter. Also put a roof over the run. Makes it nice and cozy for the winter and my hens are able to go out all winter. I also have a large plastic container with a mixture of dirt and sand for them to dust bathe in all winter.

 

[ChickyCh00k]

Alright Michigan friends, I have a question for you.

How do you prepare for winter?

Do you insulate your coop at all? What about temporarily walling off part of the run during winter?

Skip the insulation - as chickflick said, plenty of ventilation (up high) and no drafts that can blow on roosting birds is the most important thing.

A heated waterer is a good item to have if you're able to get power to your coop/run.

We wrap the bottom 3 ft of our covered run in clear, heavy-duty, plastic to decrease the winds and snow blowing in.

 

[Folly's place]

We insulated walls and had to tear it all out when RATS moved in! I do like the insulation we put in part of the roof, more for summer sun protection that winter cold, and rodents haven't found their way there.
Our coop is built on an old concrete foundation, which includes a small roofed run, all very safe for a long time. In winter we add doubled sheet vinyl to the lower run walls, and two of the window openings, which still leaves upper ventilation for them. Also, the door is opened for free ranging unless there's a snowstorm or freezing rain.
Two heated water bases out there, and we have a frost free hydrant next to the coop for easy watering. Having SAFE electricity is worth it, for lights and those heater water bases.

At the second (east) side we no longer cover that small door window or the triangle above it.
And since these pictures were taken, there's been a shingle upgrade, gutters with covers, new paint colors, and the plants are all much bigger!
The plastic covered areas are well secured hardware cloth, with 2"x4" woven wire over the lower 4'.

Mary

 

[TheDandyLion]

I'll also add, depending on your ventilation setup....

Insert cheap furnace filters into soffits to prevent snow from blowing in.

Probably the most stressful for me was researching what would work best for me to deal with freezing water. Put some serious thought into how to keep water to them. Heated bucket, frequent visits to changed water....

And a tip the wonderful people here shared.... If you cannot find good thick clear plastic, look for clear shower curtains. Dollar stores are a good place to look.

 

[Sammster]

Alright Michigan friends, I have a question for you.

How do you prepare for winter?

Do you insulate your coop at all? What about temporarily walling off part of the run during winter?

I wrap my attached run with a clear tarp like this:
I also have heated waterers like these:
And I have panel heaters like these, that I only use when the temperature is super low (single to negative digits):

 

[saysfaa]

My coop is an adaptation of Prince T Woods' open air coop designs. It was designed to be coop and run both inside a shed. The south side is open all year. In the winter, I put glass in the east windows, close off the eave vents with pool noodles, and close off the ridge vent with strips of paper-like something that the roofs threw away when our house (people house) was reroofed. That gives it three solid sides and one open side. It still has 28 sq feet of ventilation for 3-5 hens so lots of fresh air but no drafts.

I also stack a few bags of leaves from the yard in the storage end of the shed to use as litter all year and fill a couple of five gallon pails with sand or dirt to refill their dust bath tub.

That is it for winterizing.

I don't have electricity in the coop. Water is in a vacuum-sealed, 3-quart bucket to keep it from freezing faster than 8 to 10 hours even when the temps drop below zero. But it is the same bucket that keeps the water cool in the summer.

Oh, I also check that the predator apron doesn't have gaps. And the first year I had to dig the cement block step out of the frozen ground because the frost heave lifted it enough that the door didn't close.

 

[TheDandyLion]

I don't have electricity in the coop. Water is in a vacuum-sealed, 3-quart bucket to keep it from freezing faster than 8 to 10 hours even when the temps drop below zero. But it is the same bucket that keeps the water cool in the summer.

Curious about your bucket, do you have a pic?

I don't have electricity neither, and built something similar to a design I found on BYC that someone else posted.

I took a 2 gallon bucket, wrapped it in bubble wrap insulation, added a couple of layers of styrofoam for it to sit on, and placed it inside a 5 gallon bucket. Covered the top of the 2 gallon with a couple of layers of the bubble wrap insulation. Then sealed it with a 5 gallon lid. Used pex tubing and a horizontal nipple to get water from the 2 gallon to the outside. Putting warm water in it in the morning, it stayed unfrozen all day until we got into sub-zero weather. At sub-zero I swapped it out around mid-day and the hens were good to go until evening when I retrieved the bucket and started over in the AM.

It too has been great for summer. During our heat wave, the water was still cool, and cold if I add a block of ice to it. But I'm always looking for improvements .

 

[Folly's place]

We carried water to the coop in winter for years, from a more distant hydrant, snow, freezing rain, ice, whatever, a bit over 100', for 25 or so birds. Not fun!
Installing that extra hydrant, the only way!
Mary