Regarding cold weather:

[poezone]

I turned one of my small outbuildings into a coop. When the weather drops below 20 deg. I have the option of a space heater (Not in direct chicken contact, I can put it outside the inner poultry netting area) Is this a desirable method as oppose to open ventilation? I am very new to chickening.

I have 8 girls:
1 Australorp
1 Blk sex link
1 Gold sex link
2 Araucana
1 Leghorn
1 Barred Rock
1 RIR


Thank you, Tina

 

[Angiebubs]

Our temps below zero for over a month and I didn't add any heat. I do have a panel heater in there for when it was in the negative-they can go over near it to warm up-funny thing, I rarely saw them by it. The biggest thing you have to worry about is making sure there aren't any major drafts yet still have good ventilation. If you read/search through here, most will recommend NOT adding supplemental heat for a variety of reasons, They don't need it, and if electricity were to go out, they wouldn't be prepared. Their internal body temp is warmer than ours fyi. Actually there is more concern about chickens handling heat over cold and more issues from heat also.