The weather and how you are dealing with it.

[A.J.'s]

Here in Southern Tennesee we have bright beautiful sunshine. Its cold out there, maybe 18 degrees. (10 am) but I hear some of our neighbors have it rough and tooooo it might be coming our way.

I havent done anything different, just made sure I have plenty of chicken feed and scratch. I have milk bottles filled with water ready to take out each morning since I dont have any water heaters.
My crew has a grand house that is insulated with cardboard and empty feed bags. They seem content.
Im still in a query over ventaliation vs drafts but they are all healthy as far as i know and doing good.

 

[tackyrama]

Not to worry. 18 degrees is a cake walk for the chickens around here. We had -28 deg. last night. My coop/barn is self built, insulated with 6" walls and a wood stove for heat. I never use the stove unless it gets well below 0. The biggest worry in cold weather is not how cold it is but the humidity. Proper ventilation is the key to keep humidity down. I have a minimum of 10" of hay in the loft with 3/8" gaps in the ceiling boards to allow for air movement. On the east end gable of the loft I installed a large 16x24" louvre type vent and this is sufficient to let out excess humidity. I never have any condensation on windows or anywhere else. Chickens have been healthy except for one which was not cold related.

 

[A.J.'s]

Help me and let me see if I can relay this back to you in words that I know?????????
You put minimum 10 inches of hay in the attic over the chicken house. Leaving very small spaces between the boards in the ceiling.
This lets air travel up and leave the chicken house thru the holes and it goes into the attic which I guess has more gaps where the roof meets the house.
now what is a louvre type vent or is that one of those round things that goes around when the wind blows and sucks the air out of the attic-loft? if it is, then what could i use to substitute for that since i cant get on top of the hen house and it would cost too much also. would the gaps between the roof and house work as well or make do?
I do not have a loft-attic. just rafters that hold on the tin top but I did staple huge sheets of card board from a shipping company over the rafters. The roost are just 18 inches from the card board ceiling and I felt that would hold the heat near the chckens since it rises and they would be up there with the heat they produce. I stopped up the gaps where the roof meets house because they would allow the heat to escape and defeat the idea.
down on the floor of the house is dirt covered with a about 6 inches of hay. it feels damp in there sometimes but yesterday for some reason the girls came in and started scratching inside and i was amazed that the dirt was dry mostly was some hard chcken poop kinda muddy on the north side of the house and under the main roost.
infact it ws so hard i dont know if i can get it out.
in the beginning of this adventure when I had 10 hens I kept a sheet of strong plastic under the roost and about once a week or less I would pull it out the door and wash it off into my garden site. As the hen house grew I forgot to do that and now Im in a mess.
I knew a farmer once who never cleaned his cow barn and the time came when the cows could not get into the barn. He switched to goats who were not as tall as cows. But in my matter this would not work so I guess Ill have to clean my hen house more often, but I guarantee you that the next time I have a clean floor the plastic is going down. I have some heavy duty super dooper stuff im going to use and stop this problem.


It would be very unusual for out weather to be 28 below zero. but i hear that lots of unusual things are going on.. (where is al gore when you need him)

 

[beak]

You should let the air flow through the rafters from one side to the other. The airflow will suck the smell and built up humidity out of the coop. Louvre vents are usually used on the air return ducts in your house. You could put some 1" round holes in your cardboard every couple feet and probably get the same result. Watch out for your cardboard. With as much humidity as you have in Tn it will probably get kind of saggy and the chickens will peck at it.

 

[chicken quartet]

Well the only way I'm dealing with the weather is by turning off my heater and putting on shorts! It's been in the 80's here for a week now!

I can't imagine living were it actually gets below 60 during the day. I'd freeze!

 

[FrontPorchIndiana]

I have an insulated coop. I'm just running heat lamps over the waterers. It was -11 this morning with -24 wind chill yet it was a nice toasty 20 degrees inside the coop. Water was frozen but the birds were just fine.