Think it's too cold for your chickens? Think again...

[welsummer4]

I went to the trouble of partitioning off a section of the hen-house with a half-wall and an insulated drop-ceiling, and my hens have preferred roosting in the open part right below 2 square feet of open vents. The night-time temps here in southern WI have been in the teens and twenties the last couple of nights. I hope they'll use their winter lodgings when it gets below zero, but I guess they know what's best for them.

 

[Metzie]

A lot of people have been talking about frozen water. I have a three gallon metal bucket and put a 75 watt light bulb with reflector in it and tip it upside down. I put my plastic water container on it and plug it into a veriable powder source so I can adjust the amount of heat acording to the weather. It works great and don't use much elect.

 

[SkyWarrior]

Quote:
Yeah, she, or someone like her, posted on here telling everyone they should use heat once the coop got below 32. Also there was a woman in town who had a husky-mix that, once the temperatures got below about 40, used to put a coat on it. Poor dog was panting. (It was also, surprise, surprise, obese.)

OMG.

My sled dogs would've eaten the jacket and gone outside at -20F to sleep in the snow. With this spate of cold weather, my Malamute, Haegl, went into White Fang mode and insisted sleeping outside in the cold and snow. After a while, he'd ask to come in and sleep on the futon a while. I think it was his version of the Vikings going into hot springs and then rolling in the snow (or vice versa).

 

[Raen]

Quote:
Yeah, I read the "lost chickens to cold" thing as "I went out and found a dead, frozen chicken." Chickens do die for various reasons, I've seen several threads here in my short time on this board reporting such losses with what appeared to be healthy chickens. If a chook dies in the night, and temps are below freezing, the bird's carcass is going to freeze. That might look like a bird that froze to death, when it's actually a bird that died then froze.

 

[woodmort]

Here's another thing, maybe I don't watch my chickens close enough but I been keeping them a long time and have never seen one shiver. I've seen dogs shiver and horses, but never a chicken. What does a shivering chicken look like and how can you tell under all those feathers?

 

[BirdBrain]

I felt so sorry for my dear cold birds lastnight! (tongue in cheek emoticon goes here) It was 22 F and had been snowing all day. I guess I was really feeling sorry for myself...I didn't want to slog through the snow in the dark in the morning to let them out, nor did I want to be the only one on shoveling duty. So I got my son, who was only to happy to stay up way past his bed time, and we went out to shovel. As I worked my way around the end of the coop, I dusted off the snow from the nest box doors and took a peak to see if my daughter had missed any eggs when she closed the coop. Instead of eggs, I found a lowly Blue Orp gal roosting on the edge of the nest boxes. I reached through the box and dragged out the offender who was only mildly protesting. I was surprised to see how warm and toasty she was. No more feeling sorry for them at those temps.

 

[Carrie Lynn]

Woodmort,
My Bantam Leghorn shivers. It's more of a tremble, you can feel it but not see it.
Now she is a very social little thing, so I'm trying to decide if it's more of a matter of anticipation, rather than cold.
That's probably a lot more far-fetched than thinking they're cold though, isn't it?

The reason I think excitement may be the case, is because I notice it when I am letting her out of sleeping quarters in the chilly mornings,
and she likes to be held. On the other hand, perhaps she doesn't want to go and that causes trembling, I don't know.

I'll try to keep track and see what I can come up with...but there is definitely some shivers/trembling going on.

 

[Mrs MIA]

I mentioned earlier that I had received a few emails from people wondering why their chickens were shaking their heads. Received a note from a friend yesterday that one person had called our local livestock vet and after asking several questions to determine their housing etc, he told her that the 250w heat lamp was literally cooking her chickens.

(a bulb should be NON-infrared).

I have a Mille Fleur boy that has a little bit of a tremor...in fact, most of my Millies have had it. He stands on one foot, and the raised foot shakes, and he LOOKs cold. But the fact that he does that all year round means that it's not shivering.

 

[mulewagon]

My Buff Orpington hens will sometimes shiver after I've held them for a minute or so. In this weather, my bare hands are much colder than their bodies. It doesn't seem to traumatize them, though - the dopey birds still hop up and down in front of me, asking to be picked up!

 

[Kovalciks Chickens]

hmmmm interesting so if i have no heat in my coop would my chickens still get frostbite. I have Japs that have very tall combs and others with tall combs. How can I stop the frost bite?