Tennessee winter help

[woodenfarm]

This will be our fist year with 10 lovely ladies. 2 Rhode island reds, 3 white leghorns, 1 white laced Wyandotte, 2 black australorps, and 2 Orpington.
Will they need a heat lamp, heating pad thing, or what for winter. My husband thinks they will do fine with nothing and huddle together if they get cold but, I think differently
Right now it is upper 30's at night and goes up to 50's-60's during the day.

We made one of the horse stables into their coop area I can get the square footage tomorrow if that would help.

Thank you

 

[wamtazlady]

To keep your chickens warm you need to keep them dry. From what I can see of your coop, you have lots of ventilation. That should keep the moisture from them breathing and pooping from chilling them. Chickens do well in a dry area with no breezes blowing on them. My chickens make it through Montana winters with no frostbite or problems. They are outside in the covered run all day long, even when the temperature is -22. The only change I might suggest for your coop is the roost. If you have the 2 by 4s with the wide side up the birds can sit on their own feet and keep their toes warm.

 

[PirateGirl]

Since heat rises, you can hang a piece of plywood or something to make a drop ceiling of sorts about 18 inches above the highest roost to help keep the body heat they generate close to them since the barn roof looks to be quite high.

 

[Gloryfarm]

Since heat rises, you can hang a piece of plywood or something to make a drop ceiling of sorts about 18 inches above the highest roost to help keep the body heat they generate close to them since the barn roof looks to be quite high.

Actually you don’t want that warm air near them. I know it sounds counter productive but the warm air has moisture and moisture is dangerous for chickens esp in the winter. You have great vintolation. The safest winter coop is well ventilated with no direct drafts. You want them dry, their bodies can handle the warmth.

 

[sylviethecochin]

As a northern Pennsylvanian, the only thing we've ever done to winterise our coop was put up a 70-watt bulb to increase egg production. And we closed the little door. The only casualty was the tips of my big rooster's comb--and then we learned about the handy little trick of smearing that with vaseline when it gets to 10 or below.

I think hens actually like cold weather--especially australorps. My standards always seemed to enjoy the snow.

 

[Ridgerunner]

I grew up in the Cumberland Gap area in Tennessee. I remember one winter we had several days and nights straight that it never got above zero Fahrenheit. If I remember right that was in the late 1950’s or early 1960’s, it’s been a while. We had some chickens that slept in trees. Most were in the hen house but a few slept in trees. Those chickens did not freeze to death and they did not get frostbite. Those chickens were not on a bare limb overlooking a bluff squawking defiantly in the teeth of a blizzard, they were in a sheltered valley where they were pretty well protected from the wind but also had great ventilation.

People like to think that keeping chickens is something new and that chickens are oh, so delicate. People all over the world in climates a lot colder than you will see have been keeping chickens for thousands of years, long before there were heat lamps. They did not heat the area where the chickens slept or where they spent the day. Just like the wild birds that overwinter where you are, they allowed their chickens to keep themselves warm.

Chickens need two things to keep themselves warm and from your photos they have them both. They need to be out of a strong wind. They keep themselves warm by trapping tiny pockets of air in their feathers and down. A strong breeze that ruffles their feathers can allow those tiny air pockets to escape. Gentle air that does not ruffle their feathers is good, that means they are getting good ventilation, which is the other thing they need.

The biggest risk to chickens in not freezing to death, it’s frostbite. If the air is really moist they can get frostbite at just a little below freezing. But if you can keep the air pretty dry they can stand it really cold without a problem. In a tight coop, especially a small one relative to the number of chickens, the moisture can come from their breath, their poop, or maybe a waterer, especially if that waterer is heated. Good ventilation allows all that excess moisture to go away.

The problems with a lot of our coops is that they are not set up for chickens to keep themselves warm. They are so tight that moisture cannot escape. Or we create wind tunnels that don’t allow them to get out of a breeze. Your coop does not have those problems. You did well.

A few years back I did an experiment on roosts. I tried tree limbs, 2x4’s on edge, and 2x4’s flat. I mixed them up and moved them around so where they were in the coop (the window area is favored) and so height was not an issue (they tend to sleep on the highest point available). There can be a lot of discussion on this forum as to what chickens prefer. My conclusion was that people care a lot more about that than chickens do. To chickens it just doesn’t matter.

I now have a 2x4 on edge like you have and some tree limbs. Some parts of those tree limbs are pretty small yet they get used. When my chickens scrunch down on the roosts to sleep at night in cold weather they fluff up a bit to allow that insulation to keep them warm. Their feathers cover their feet so those stay warm too. Wasn’t Mother Nature clever to come up with that? The coldest I see most winters here is a few degrees below zero Fahrenheit. My chickens have no problems with frostbite on their feet. I see no reason for you to change your roosts, they look great.

 

[woodenfarm]

Thank you.
Husband won the debate haha

Another question during the summer I cleaned the coop out but, the past month or so I have been doing the layering to help add heat for this time of year. I put the garden powder stuff down (Not sure the name if it of the top of my head but, it is chicken safe) then add a new layer of straw down. Will that be ok for them with this being so open? I will clean it out good when spring hits. Just want to keep them healthy

 

[aart]

Thank you.
Husband won the debate haha

Another question during the summer I cleaned the coop out but, the past month or so I have been doing the layering to help add heat for this time of year. I put the garden powder stuff down (Not sure the name if it of the top of my head but, it is chicken safe) then add a new layer of straw down. Will that be ok for them with this being so open? I will clean it out good when spring hits. Just want to keep them healthy

'Garden powder stuff'... to kill bugs?
Layering to create heat...you must be thinking of a composting deep litter system?
Needs moisture to really generate heat....and that's counter intuitive to keeping things dry.
You have great ventilation and wind breaks,
your birds have a great winter space there!

I would worry more about that chicken wire, not predator proof.
Might want to add a 'ceiling' of 1/2 hardware cloth to your coop area too.

 

[Ridgerunner]

What is important is that the coop floor stays dry. A wet coop is dangerous as far as disease and it will stink. A dry coop is healthy and has a fairly pleasant earthy smell.

If the poop builds up to the point that it doesn’t dry out you have a problem, that will stink. Think of your bedding as a diaper. It soaks up moisture from the poop but once it gets soaked it can’t soak up any more moisture. A good way to help keep the poop from building up is to mix it in with your bedding. With good ventilation and if you don’t have a high chicken density where they are dropping a lot of poop in a small area that usually works. It helps a lot if they can get outside during the day so they are not adding to the poop load in the coop during the day.

At night they don’t move around but they are still pooping. It’s pretty common for poop to build up under the roosts. With your ladder-type roost it can be difficult to use a droppings board so you may be cleaning that area out occasionally. One trick to get the chickens to stir it up for you is to toss a little scratch in that area. They will dig through that bedding looking for those treats and stir it for you.

They do not need the heat from composting in your coop, they can keep themselves warm without it. That’s the Deep Litter Method by the way, composting in your coop, if you want to do a search on it. For that stuff to compost and provide some heat it needs to be slightly damp. You don’t want it wet, it will become stinky and unhealthy. If it is too dry the bugs that break it down into compost can’t live and reproduce. The description for optimum moisture is to take a sponge, get it wet, then squeeze all the water you can out of it. That dampness is what you are shooting for.

I don’t do that. I keep my coop so dry that those bugs can’t live so that stuff never breaks down. I also use a droppings board under my roosts to collect a lot of the nighttime poop, which goes into my compost pile. That keeps my poop load down in the bedding. Some people scrape droppings boards daily and clean their coop bedding out weekly. I might scrape my droppings board once a week or once every six weeks, depending on my chicken density and how humid the air is. If it ever starts to smell I waited too long. I normally clean all the bedding out of my coop once every three or four years. I don’t need it clean it out but I want that stuff on my garden. I put it on in the fall and by planting time it has broken down.

We all do these things differently. We have different goals, climates, set-ups, experience levels and all that. What works for one of us doesn’t necessarily work for all. You need to find what works for you. Experiment, do some trial and error. Try not working quite so hard and see how that works out. You may be surprised at how easy it really can be. With your set-up it doesn’t have to be hard.

 

[PirateGirl]

Actually you don’t want that warm air near them. I know it sounds counter productive but the warm air has moisture and moisture is dangerous for chickens esp in the winter. You have great vintolation. The safest winter coop is well ventilated with no direct drafts. You want them dry, their bodies can handle the warmth.

So are you saying the size of a coop relative to the number of chickens is irrelevant? If you have a huge coop and a small number of chickens it doesn't matter that there aren't enough chickens to raise the ambient temperature in the enclosure?