Sponsored Post Tips From Nutrena: The Heat is On, But is heating the coop really necessary in winter?

[windnleavesfarm]

I have a question i believe in your thread you said to insalte the walls and ceiling. this was our original plan when buolding my coop and still is not done because my father syas that mice will get into the walls because it will be warm. is this true or is it a good idea to ins@@JenniO11alte it? What would you use for insaltion? We live in central new york with harsh winters and very cold winds.

 

[KC101]

I enjoyed reading this. Thank you....

 

[JackE]

I have a question i believe in your thread you said to insalte the walls and ceiling. this was our original plan when buolding my coop and still is not done because my father syas that mice will get into the walls because it will be warm. is this true or is it a good idea to ins@JenniO11alte it? What would you use for insaltion? We live in central new york with harsh winters and very cold winds.

You don't need to insulate your coop's walls. Your Dad is right, about the mice. After all, chickens already come with PERFECT insulation of their own. They don't need any help from us.

This(Original post) is a good article about NOT needing to add any heat to a coop. Check out the link below. On pg 23-4, you can read about people up in Canada, keeping chickens in open air coops, with temps down to -40.

http://archive.org/stream/openairpoultryho00wood#page/n0/mode/2up

 

[bruceha2000]

I could certainly see why many people don't provide any heat, but what about somewhere like where I live, Manitoba Canada? During the worst periods of winter it often stays around -30'C for weeks on end and sometimes gets into the-40s'c? My hen house isn't insulated but is solid with no drafts.

If you do heat the coop, I would insulate it. Save yourself a lot if money. Even if you don't heat, I suppose insulation could make it easier for the birds to heat the space. But: if they have plenty of ventilation, I don't think insulating will do much, the heat will just flow out with the stale air.

But I don't and won't heat. And if you need any proof that they don't need heat:
1) One of my girls moulted. Almost no top feathers, no tail, etc. Since it was getting down around 20F, I enclosed an area she could go into in a stall adjacent to the coop with the 150W heat lamp I used when they were in the brooder. She didn't go near it. If she were really cold, you would think she would hang near the heat. Instead, she chose to stay up on the roost in the coop most of the day. Mostly I think, because they seem really skittish when they are moulting.
2) Inexplicably, 2 of the 5 nipples in my heated water pipe decided to drain out the night before Thanksgiving as if there was nothing there. They had worked fine for over a year and were all just fine that morning. Since it was dropping to 10F, I needed to do something for them since the pipe is built into the bottom of the nest box, no easy way to replace the nipples. I put their plastic waterer on a concrete pad under the heat lamp (see (1) above) to keep it from freezing. It was like that for 2 days while I made a 2 nipple pipe to connect to the bucket outside the coop. Not one chicken ever hung around near the heat source, NOT ONE.

Bruce

 

[True Grit]

I'm a few hundred miles south of you in Manitoba so we don't get as cold for as long but I've experienced those temps in Alberta. I do have a heatlamp on my 4 chickens and in an insulated 4x4 coop with a sheltered run. The hanging plastic housed lamp is over the roost for some radiant heat at night. In extreme temps it only raises the temp in the coop 8 to 10 degrees. You might want to put some straw bales around your coop and plenty of straw on the floor. Straw doesn't stay as damp as hay and is much warmer than sand on their feet, plus they can snuggle down in it. Hopefully you have a sufficient number of chickens to make some heat for themselves. You can get a gauge to measure temp and humidity in the coop. At 40 below the only moisture in the air will be coming from your chickens. It needs to escape but you don't worry as much about humidity at -40 as at 20 degrees simply because there won't be very much.

 

[Allysha1990]

Thanks guys I was planning on insulating, just haven't got the stuff for it yet. They have lots of straw that they can make bedding in and I change it around every 2 weeks. We only moved into our house on Nov 1st so I didn't have enough time to start the deep litter method.

 

[JackE]

Insulation is a waste of time and money if it is for 'keeping the chickens warm'. If your coop is properly ventilated, you are not keeping any heat in. The only good thing, as far as insulation in a chicken coop, is in the summertime/hotter months. Having insulation under the roof to help absorb roof heat. If you bother with insulating the walls, you will have to install interior walls. Otherwise the birds will make a quick mess of the insulation. After you go through the unnecessary time and expense of adding those interior walls, all you will have done is supplied a great out of view place for Mr. mouse (Or rat) to set up housekeeping of their own.

 

[mrballance]

Insulation is a waste of time and money if it is for 'keeping the chickens warm'. If your coop is properly ventilated, you are not keeping any heat in. The only good thing, as far as insulation in a chicken coop, is in the summertime/hotter months. Having insulation under the roof to help absorb roof heat. If you bother with insulating the walls, you will have to install interior walls. Otherwise the birds will make a quick mess of the insulation. After you go through the unnecessary time and expense of adding those interior walls, all you will have done is supplied a great out of view place for Mr. mouse (Or rat) to set up housekeeping of their own.

That is so true. How did the chickens survive in the old days ? lets not baby them they can handle it. They have been doing it for years.

 

[jermoatc]

-13 degrees outdoors here in Colorado Springs this morning. I have 12 pullets 10 weeks old out in my 5x6foot insulated coop. No supplemental heat. +15 degrees in there this morning and they are as happy as can be. Chickens are amazingly tough.

 

[dave1987]

I recently purchased a book called "The Chicken Whisperers Guide to Keeping Chickens." In this book "The Chicken Whisperer" says about this subject of heating a coop; " living in a relatively temperate region, I have never added a heat source to any of my coops. When people ask me whether to heat a coop, I always tell them the same series of answers: Chickens have been around since approximately 10,000 BC, but we have only had electricity for about 125 years and the chickens seem to have survived. Some reply with the following: " I know, but I will sleep better at night knowing my chickens are warm and toasty." I live in Ohio where the winters can be quite harsh, I will never heat my coop. Just insulate the floor well, keep them dry and your coop draft free, but also allowing for proper ventilation. Chickens are tougher than what some people think.