Questions!

[schmoo]

You could always go with a red 250 watt flood also if it gets really cold and you find a 150 not to be enough. This is the first winter I'll have mine so I plan to keep a thermometer up and play it by ear.

I use red because I heard bright light can make them peck each other. I also have a 45 watt regular bulb just for extra light, because I only have one window.

 

[MTchick]

The 150 watt bulb doesn't heat the whole coop- it heats about 1/2 the coop and the other half is chilly. The hens don't truly need the heat when they are adults as long as their coop stays above freezing, from what my friends with chickens that live around here have told me. The key is to make it draft-free so that the body heat of the hens does the work for you. Although I have to say, I was shocked by how much that bulb did heat when it was in an enclosed space. I had a reflector above it that angled the warmth down, and the lamp itself was about 2ft off the shavings. The area directly under the lamp, on the shavings, was about 70degrees when it was about 32 outside. Not too bad.

-MTchick

 

[radical53]

Even though with my huge dilemma:
https://www.backyardchickens.com/forum/viewtopic.php?id=7955

I am still going to get ideas about coop construction for my plans because i believe that my problem will have a happy ending. I would like to thank you all who have responded to last questions. And i have another one!

What flooring material do you all use and how easy is it to clean?

Thanks in advance!

 

[mamaboyd]

Hi ya, we live about 1 1/2 hours north of Toronto, just past Oshawa. Where are you located? We pored a cement floor and built off of it to prevent any critters from digging under and getting in. We use shavings and they seem to be working well, and we just shovel the dirty stuff out and replace it.

 

[radical53]

Mamaboyd- I am located in keswick on lake simcoe

 

[SeaChick]

We did a lot of research on cold-hardy breeds and those that lay well during the winter (we're in maine). We also wanted good egg production, friendliness and non-broodiness, so we scratched a few off the list that would have been hardy enough, and compromised some for friendliness/looks. We wound up with this list, all of which are said to be quite cold-hardy:

Buff Orpington
Barred Rock
Black Australorp
Silver Laced Wyandotte
Rhode Island Red
Red Sex Link (she's hopefully the power layer who wont ever go broody)

We plan to keep a light on a timer so that they get their 14 hours of light and hopefully keep laying all winter.

 

[radical53]

wow thanks for the list now i don't have to research now

more questions isn't everyone excited

jk

Do chickens swim? my yard is completely fenced in except the back were there is a river. Will the chickens hop in the river a leave or do they not like water?

P.S we have a retaining wall and there is about a 2 foot drop from the lawn to the water.

 

[radical53]

anybody know the answer to the question on my previous post?

 

[kcfuerst]

Hey Radical,

I never had chickens before either. The two things I did before I did anything at all was to know what kind of chickens I wanted to suit my purpose and ones which would do well in my climate. For this important information, I visited this site to choose the most appropriate birds:

http://www.ithaca.edu/staff/jhenderson/chooks/dual.html

Then I gathered as much information about coops from every site I could find, how they worked, and then did my own thing using combined information. On the ventilation, if you're worried about really cold weather, you could make a vent across the eaves of your coop to include a damper effect which you could open and close according to your needs. Birds need ventilation, even in winter, to get the powerful odors out of the coop and to keep them healthy.

 

[wren]

hi!

Chickens don't like water or getting rained on for that matter. But accidents can happen and chickens don't do well in water, so hopefully your river is slow moving.