Preparing Your Flock & Coop for WINTER

[Oprah Henfry]

I just read that you can add a few ping-pong balls to the water, since the breeze will keep the balls moving and therefore preventing a layer of ice. I also saw that you could put a heat bulb in the hole of a cinder block and a thin stepping stone on top of the block and put the water on top of the whole thing. This seems like a good idea, but what if you don't have electricity to your coop? It really would be awesome if there was something to put into the water to prevent freezing, Cana! I'll have to look into that as well...

 

[CanaDawn]

I just read that you can add a few ping-pong balls to the water, since the breeze will keep the balls moving and therefore preventing a layer of ice. I also saw that you could put a heat bulb in the hole of a cinder block and a thin stepping stone on top of the block and put the water on top of the whole thing. This seems like a good idea, but what if you don't have electricity to your coop? It really would be awesome if there was something to put into the water to prevent freezing, Cana! I'll have to look into that as well...

Pingpong balls will just freeze into the solid block of water here. We're not talking a layer of ice.
I don't have space for a cinderblock setup, but it would work in a larger space, and plenty of people on here use that setup. If you're planning to keep the water outside, you'd have space, but I don't know how well it will work at your coldest temperatures. You'll have to search for "cinder block waterer" and see what temps people have used it successfully.
If you don't have electricity, you have to forego things that require electricity.
There's lots of things you can put into water to lower the freezing point, but not so many that would be good for the hens, especially if that's all you were going to do (basically, if it will freeze in your deepfreezer, it won't work in your coop at -25C/-13F, and that's what I need, at a minimum) The more I think about it, the less I think there's anything I could add that wouldn't be detrimental to the birds if it were high enough concentration to adjust the freezing point in a meaningful way.

 

[Oprah Henfry]

Pingpong balls will just freeze into the solid block of water here. We're not talking a layer of ice.
I don't have space for a cinderblock setup, but it would work in a larger space, and plenty of people on here use that setup. If you're planning to keep the water outside, you'd have space, but I don't know how well it will work at your coldest temperatures. You'll have to search for "cinder block waterer" and see what temps people have used it successfully.
If you don't have electricity, you have to forego things that require electricity.
There's lots of things you can put into water to lower the freezing point, but not so many that would be good for the hens, especially if that's all you were going to do (basically, if it will freeze in your deepfreezer, it won't work in your coop at -25C/-13F, and that's what I need, at a minimum) The more I think about it, the less I think there's anything I could add that wouldn't be detrimental to the birds if it were high enough concentration to adjust the freezing point in a meaningful way.

Do you have an open top bucket/tub for your waterer, chicken bucket with nipples, or one of these?

If you have the last one (like me) idk what you could do, but if you have a nipple waterer, you might be able to insulate it on the outside and fill it with very warm (but not hot) water in the mornings and evenings. I might try that with my type of waterer, putting it in the deep freezer as a test, I'll let you know when I get results!

 

[CanaDawn]

I have two similar to what you posted a photo of, and I swap them out morning and evening. Don't worry 'bout me, I think I have some new ideas to improve my setup, and if not, doing what I did last winter will work just fine.

Oh, and if you want to know how those work out, they freeze solid within a few hours.

 

[Oprah Henfry]

I have two similar to what you posted a photo of, and I swap them out morning and evening. Don't worry 'bout me, I think I have some new ideas to improve my setup, and if not, doing what I did last winter will work just fine.

Oh, and if you want to know how those work out, they freeze solid within a few hours.

Haha I kinda figured they would...

I'll figure out something eventually, theres plenty of time! Good luck!

 

[napdognewfie]

Do you have kids? Anybody else to take a turn watering? It would at least be less trips out for you.

 

[SusanD]

Hi,

I was glad to find this thread, as my parents and I are in the process of trying to determine what needs to happen to winter our chickens successfully, and are struggling to come up with ideas. We have a prefabbed coop, an open run with mulch, and a small run that my Dad made that could be covered. My ideas so far are putting more mulch down, covering the small run (I don't really like that idea, because it's hard to clean), and giving them scratch if the temperature is low. I'm not sure that will be enough, so would welcome any input. For my area, the main concerns would be rain and dealing with the (rare, but not unheard of) snowstorm if one occurs.

Here is a picture of the small run



and of the coop



Thanks,

Susan

 

[Mrs. K]

The answer is not that absolute nor black and white across the board, specific breed considerations have to be factored in... I have a mixed flock of chickens (full size and bantam), peafowl and guinea fowl in my coop/building as well as my dogs sometimes... I provide some additional ambient heat mostly for the peafowl as I know from experience they run the risk of frostbite on their feet and losing toes (even when using flat perches) in extreme cold temps... Simply not worth me risking injury to them when I can easy avoid the risk by not letting the coop fall below 35°... I also do not have to deal with frozen water or be bothered with water heaters when doing this... My coop building is two stories (about 1300 sqft total) and has a forced air gas furnace just like a house, I have it hooked up to a low temp (garage) thermostat set at about 35°F... No one is going to convince me this is not beneficial to the birds in the overall grand picture, but I would love to hear why some would claim me doing this is "downright harmful"... Now granted the size of my coop is much larger than many/most, but this is also part of the equation that distracts from an absolute black and white answer...

One of the big problems with heating a coop is that heat is expensive, and we have been taught all along to keep the area air tight to trap the heat and not be heating "the great American outdoors" to quote my dad.

Problem, when you trap heat, you also trap moisture, and generally add a build up of gases from manure. Those are elements that can seriously effect your birds in a negative way.

Again, dry conditions = healthy birds. To get dry birds, you need at least a foot of space above their heads, and they need to be about foot away from the wall, where moisture will condense. You need good bedding on the floor to absorb moisture, and good ventilation to remove moisture from the building.

The quoted poster has a very large coop, most backyard coops are no where near that size. However, that size should also help keep them dry.
Mrs K

 

[Coffee 1st]

sad.....thank you for the info....i wont be using a heat source...

 

[CanaDawn]

One of the big problems with heating a coop is that heat is expensive, and we have been taught all along to keep the area air tight to trap the heat and not be heating "the great American outdoors" to quote my dad.

Problem, when you trap heat, you also trap moisture, and generally add a build up of gases from manure. Those are elements that can seriously effect your birds in a negative way.

Again, dry conditions = healthy birds. To get dry birds, you need at least a foot of space above their heads, and they need to be about foot away from the wall, where moisture will condense. You need good bedding on the floor to absorb moisture, and good ventilation to remove moisture from the building.

The quoted poster has a very large coop, most backyard coops are no where near that size. However, that size should also help keep them dry.
Mrs K

Yup, it's not black and white. Saying heating is "downright harmful" is not useful.....EVERYone has to look at their overall setup and their birds/animals needs and consider WHY things are being considered harmful or not. MeepBeep is right - in her situation, providing low, dry heat means her birds are healthier, and she doesn't have to heat water, etc. You are right - she has a large setup that isn't the typical back yard coop, so a large forced air furnace in her situation makes sense, where it won't in many other backyard coops.

Heating, though, isn't intrinsically something evil, and all your suggested things to reduce moisture may also cause other problems if they aren't done properly (too much bedding, and you'll never get a dry environment, if you don't also control the amount of condensation, or if your water system is wetting the bedding, etc...) Yes, sometimes things cause fires...but that includes regular electrical wiring as well as heat lamps, and there are ways to reduce the risk of heat lamps if that is the system one chooses. For every coop that burns, there are thousands and thousands that do not. Cold can lead to frostbite and increases feed costs, but it has to be understood what constitutes "cold" for chickens, biologically (vs humans used to central heating and hot climate), in order not to increase risk or cost unnecessarily.

I dunno. I'm sure this will attract disdain and dislike, but I think that understanding the variables of one's own set up is worth more than creating fear or smearing the way someone else has things working, and understanding what creates the risk of certain options allows for mitigation of the risk vs just ruling out entire options because someone else set it up without taking adequate precautions, or because someone else has a generalised fear of something. Chickens have certain needs and a range of temperature and humidity at which they, biologically, function properly and remain healthy. It seems to me that that's good information to have, along with any breed specific considerations, when considering how to set up for cold.

Could be that's what you're saying and I'm misinterpreting, but I'm kind of also responding to MeepBeep saying she's apparently been told that heating is "downright harmful". I worried so much about how to set up heat for my hens, but in the end, it was wasted fretting, because with a level of awareness of risk issues, my set up worked as well as any of the probably dozens of others I could have used, and they turned out to be fairly hardy after all. (I was told they were rather delicate....)