question for wisconsin peeps

[Keene's coop]

so last week i posted something about heating my coop in winter. i read somewhere that heating your coop can be deadly to my chickens. the article said that if you heat your coop and the electricity happens to go out, the sudden drop in tempurature could kill my chickens. some people sent me some links to my question, but i'm still not sure what to do. so here's a little description of my coop. it is 5ftWX5ftLX5ftH, give a take a few inches. coop is built up against the garage with a unusable human door smack in the middle of coop, but it's cracked open. a few holes in the top of the coop and the chicken door is 2ftWx2ftH. my chickens are a RIR, orpington, small grey cochin, and mixed breed the size of the RIR. they are all around the 15-21 week age. so my questions is will it be safe for me not to heat the coop or is that something i really need to do. after just loosing 5 chickens to my neighbors dog and 1 to unknown causes, i don't think my kids can take loosing anymore chickens. so i don't know what i should do. to heat or not to heat. what do you all do and any suggestions. by the way, i do give them cracked corn every morning and evening, if that helps. thanks in advance.

 

[drumstick diva]

Do you have any photos to show inside and outside of your coop. I'm not clear on what you mean by an unusable human door in the middle of the coop. Is this being used as a divider or ????
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Rather than heating your coop, consider insulating it. I don't know what your winters are like but, ours in Chicago area can be pretty severe. You want to have a draft free, rainproof coop. The problem is childrens generate alot of heat and if there is not sufficient ventilation inside, condensation forms. This in turns causes frostbite. I think the only mention you made was of a few holes at the top. I don't think that is sufficient to keep them healthy. You do want to have ventilation above the chickens - not causing drafts on them. There are numerous ways to do so, some people have venting with hardware cloth to protect openings and keep predators out. They may also have a moveable solid panel over them, so they can adjust when they want more/less air moving thru.

If you search for coop building, winterizing coops, ventilation, predator proofing etc. you will find very detailed info on these topics that will aid you more than I can. I'm sure others will follow my reply with better suggestions.

You mention losing 6 chickens, that may have been too many for the size of your coop with the younger ones included. You will probably have many days between now and spring where they will have to be confined to the coop due to inclement weather. If you crowd chickens, they get bored and anxious and this can cause alot of pecking, fighting etc.

 

[drumstick diva]

PS please excuse my "senior moments" I wrote childens instead of chickens, and who knows what else wrong. I think you get my drift tho. I don't know where Neenah is, in a colder or warmer part of Wisconsin, you might want to clarify that for others who will offer their advise. Sorry for the loss of chickens, its very hard on grownups as well as kids.

 

[swimmer]

Insulate it good, provide good ventilation and keep them dry. If your going to worry all winter if they are safe, don't heat. They'll be fine. I was raised in WI and know how cold it gets there. We had hens growing up and never heated the coop and they all did fine. I'm sure if you ask around your area, I'm guessing more people don't heat than the ones that do.