Power outage & reintroducing chickens to cold

[SheppFamilyFlock]

I live in Northern Alberta Canada and we are experiencing some pretty cold temps right now. It's our first winter on our homestead, and only our second winter in the north, so we are new to this. Our 3 birds have a heated mat, and when temps started approaching -30°C (and now -40) we added a heat lamp. This kept their coop at -20 and they seemed comfortable.

Our power went out tonight and was out for about 3 hours before we woke up and noticed. By the time I went out to the coop it was -30 inside and the birds were getting frost on their feathers. I brought them into the house because we didn't know when the power would come back on and I didn't want them to freeze to death. Our power is now back on and I'm not sure when to bring them back outside. I've read a sudden change in temperature can be hard on them. The house is warming up faster than the coop but I feel like the coop is still too cold to bring them back out yet.

Should I bring them out now before they get too warm in here? Should I wait a few hours until the coop warms back up a bit?

 

[SheppFamilyFlock]

Update: I brought them back out after posting this. The heat lamp is on and under it felt warm enough. I'm going to leave this post up because I'm curious for others' input.

I definitely panicked when I brought them inside, but if I'd known the power would be back on in an hour I would have left them out there. I've been told the power company here is pretty good at getting it restored quickly, especially in the winter, but I've lived in areas where power outages lasted for days so that's always my assumption. Better to assume the worst and be prepared right?

We hesitated on adding the lamp in the first place because of situations exactly like this but we were worried -40° would be just too cold. The heat mat doesn't seem to do much, I'm sure it helps their feet not freeze but we were worried about the overall temperature inside the coop. Is there something we can do differently? We have an extension cord run out to their coop that can have 3 things plugged in max (currently has waterer, mat, and lamp)

We are using the deep litter method as well (or trying to, still figuring that out) but since we just got our coop up and running this summer I'm not sure that there's enough in there for it to work properly.

 

[Debbie292d]

I'm guessing your heat mat is about equivalent to a Cozy Coop radiant heater, so in other words, good if they're by it.

We heat our coop to about 40F/4C, yet, they come out when it's 20F/-7C, so that's a 20-degree difference they experience all winter long. So had I have to bring any in the house at say 65F, that's only 25 degrees different. I did have to do that last winter and read somewhere to do it gradually. You had many, so don't know how this could have worked. I picked the warmest part of the day, wrapped her in a bath towel, and ran her out to the coop. There I stood for a few minutes so she'd start feeling the colder air slowly. I then loosened the towel so she'd slowly start breathing the colder air. I stood there for about 5 minutes before loosening it some more. She was fine.

 

[saysfaa]

Update: ...

That seems sensible from the little I know about such temperatures and situations.