post your chicken coop pictures here!

[Chicken Egg 17]

deb/perchie.girl picked up on what i was getting at.  At those temperatures and with good ventilation (not drafts) the chickens are doing very well...they're better adapted at dealing with the cold than they are heat.  There are people with chickens down whose winter temps get down into the -20's and -30's who use no auxiliary heat and their birds do good.  Do a search for "P.T. Woods" and "Open Air Poultry Houses".

Best wishes,
Ed

Well I lost one of my birds due to the cold this year it was 16 degrees out i think and I open the coop and she was froze solid by the time I went to let them out in the morning.

 

[junebuggena]

It should be noted that healthy birds can handle sub-zero temps just fine. Birds that are ill (even if they haven't started showing symptoms) will not be able tolerate cold.

 

[MeepBeep]

Well I lost one of my birds due to the cold this year it was 16 degrees out i think and I open the coop and she was froze solid by the time I went to let them out in the morning.

I doubt the cold killed them, they were likely already ill, or had other heath issues and the cold might have exasperated that illness, but was likely not the cause of death...

 

[Intheswamp]

...and, if the cold killed it, why didn't it kill the others? Moist, damp conditions is what causes frostbite and freezing in the coop...ventilation gets rid of the moisture. Damp conditions also probably contribute much to respiratory problems in chickens as does anything else.

@Roada Red, it seems counter-intuitive that ventilation is better in cold weather than auxiliary heat at preventing frostbite, but it's pretty well been proven many times by many people.

Here's a couple of links related to ventilation...

This is Pat's Big Ol' Ventilation Page...
https://www.backyardchickens.com/a/...-go-out-there-and-cut-more-holes-in-your-coop


At least read post #8 in this thread. @Mrs. K sums it up nicely with the idea of DRY....
https://www.backyardchickens.com/t/1048597/ventilated-but-free-of-drafts

Ed

 

[MeepBeep]

@Roada Red, it seems counter-intuitive that ventilation is better in cold weather than auxiliary heat at preventing frostbite, but it's pretty well been proven many times by many people.

Yep, unless you devote to going all out to heating and maintaining the coop above freezing at all times with a 'proper' up to code heating (not extension cords or heat lamps) while still balancing the ventilation that is still necessary to rid the coop of ammonia gasses then it's best to avoid heat totally as the cons outweigh the pros in almost all instances unless fully devoted and done correctly...

As many know I'm not against heating if done properly, as I heat my own coop to about 35°-40°F all winter, but it's done with a forced air furnace just like you have in most houses, that furnace has multiple levels of additional filtration that are checked every day and the furnace is cleaned weekly of anything that gets past the filters... My coops size at 1800 sq/ft is much larger than most, and even so I continue to vent it even while heating, I just dampen down the venting day and night and based on outside temps... It's a lot of work and requires near daily adjustments, hardly some plug and play setup...

I would never just toss a heat lamp in the coop and call it a day, that is dangerous and likely to cause more issues then it begins to solve...

If you are going to 'heat' a coop for cold intolerant breeds I suggest a heat box inside the coop using a radiant ceramic heater similar to this setup, this will trap some warm air around the bird, but sill allow normal ventilation in the coop and if sized properly the birds head is in the constant fresh air from ventilation and the exhaled air is also exhausted... The red being a radiant heater, spaced off the back wall with a screen in front of it to stop the bird from leaning against it... These ceramic heaters never reach combustion temps so the risk of first is extremely low...

Also one has to really consider the temp, I know for warm weather people anything bellow 32°F seems cold but honestly it's not and for most chickens it's not even a mild concern at any above 0°F as long as there is proper ventilation to rid the coop of excess humidity...

 

[gpeters3]

Put the rooster on the 'Rehome forum'. Both leghorns are now laying. One thing i will get from this project is breed insight. In a few months ill know what breeds i want to keep. Unfortunately, my favorite cant lay eggs so ill never know and i have no idea what breed my black hen is so ill never know what breed lays beautiful, jumbo, green eggs :-(

Anyway, my coop and run are done and wont ever be changed so i will be moving to a breed forum. Got a lot of insight from this forum. Really appreciate all the help and banter but my comments are off thread now. Going hunting for a more compatible forum. Thanks again for all the insight.

 

[MeepBeep]

so ill never know what breed lays beautiful, jumbo, green eggs :-(

There are no purebreds that lay jumbo green eggs, at best you can look at Araucana or Ameraucana and get a blue to mint green egg depending on breeding lines...

If you want jumbo green eggs, you will have to seek out a breeder that is breeding a hybrid or mutt line of jumbo green egg layers...

 

[Chicken Egg 17]

There are no purebreds that lay jumbo green eggs, at best you can look at Araucana or Ameraucana and get a blue to mint green egg depending on breeding lines...

If you want jumbo green eggs, you will have to seek out a breeder that is breeding a hybrid or mutt line of jumbo green egg layers...

I am working breeding a green egg layer but I haven't figured out how to get the eggs to get bigger though. But here is a pic of one of there eggs

 

[MeepBeep]

I am working breeding a green egg layer but I haven't figured out how to get the eggs to get bigger though. But here is a pic of one of there eggs

Breed in a large brown laying breed like red sex links to you existing blue or green egg layers... Or you can breed in some leghorn, but you will have to restore the blue/blue shell gene in later generations if you want them to breed true...

That or cull back the small layers an only breed your biggest layers to each other...

 

[Chicken Egg 17]

I just got so,s red sexlinks the mix I breed to get the green layers like that is my EE and Rhode Island Red and I got one green layer and I have started to breed me no where near ready to start breeding but I have to find another EE rooster before I can continue breeding the rooster I have breeding right now hadn't been getting the job done. So I don't want that to spread to the young roosters if he isn't fertilizing the hens to well so I want them to be a Breed that doesn't have good fertilization.