To Heat or not Heat my Coop

[Howard E]

The dilemma I keep having as I look at coop placement/ventilation/weather changes is, at what point is it cruel not to intervene in the protection of the animals. We take horses, cattle, work dogs into a barn... and animals left outside and exposed realistically do die and freeze. Realistically, birds have managed to survive many a winter tucked away in nests through snow storms and freezing temps, but as my pets and providers of meat/eggs and my responsibility - at what point is it reasonable for me to intervene? I suppose, being as comfortable as I am inside my warm house on freezing cold days, I'm hard to convince.

Where your responsibility comes in is to make sure they have the right housing.......dry and draft free, with access to food and water at all times. Do that and they will be fine.

Even people acclimate to some pretty extreme stuff. We spent Thanksgiving about 600 miles north of where we live. It was much colder there than where we live. I had on a heavy parka and was cold. Locals were wearing shorts and light jackets. Little kids walking around with no hats, no gloves and their jackets open. Embarrassing. But after 2 or 3 days of that, it wasn't too bad. When we came home, same house temps that felt cool when we left now felt hot.

Provided you don't screw it up and provide supplemental heat, give them plenty of light and a well ventilated, draft free house to live in and they will be fine.

I'd like to see a picture of Wesley's historic house. My guess is replacement of those windows might be a good idea, but that depends on the vent system they built.

 

[Noreaster Egger]

How many that say the chickens are "fine" in well below 0F temps have an elevated coop about 2ft off the ground? Just curious.

I think it makes a difference with inside temp versus the outside ambient. I have an elevated, uninsulated 8x8 coop and I'm finding my in coop temps are the same as outside at night. I have good ventilation near the roof line and no drafts on the birds. The ventilation is up around 8ft high and the roosts are at about 3ft. An elevated coop allows that below zero air to get under the coop whereas a coop on the ground gets to tap into the warmth of the ground. I have 2 leghorns amongst my 11 birds in C NH and I'm definitely concerned about them getting frostbit combs and wattles. The weather over the upcoming week looks pretty brutal for recent December standards. I guess I could go out and get some bales of hay to put around the bottom of the coop to try to insulate the underneath.

 

[JackE]

How many that say the chickens are "fine" in well below 0F temps have an elevated coop about 2ft off the ground? Just curious.

I think it makes a difference with inside temp versus the outside ambient. I have an elevated, uninsulated 8x8 coop and I'm finding my in coop temps are the same as outside at night. I have good ventilation near the roof line and no drafts on the birds. The ventilation is up around 8ft high and the roosts are at about 3ft. An elevated coop allows that below zero air to get under the coop whereas a coop on the ground gets to tap into the warmth of the ground. I have 2 leghorns amongst my 11 birds in C NH and I'm definitely concerned about them getting frostbit combs and wattles. The weather over the upcoming week looks pretty brutal for recent December standards. I guess I could go out and get some bales of hay to put around the bottom of the coop to try to insulate the underneath.

My coop is raised about two ft, and the front is wide open. There is no insulation, and no heat. Have winter temps here just below zero (Not including windchill) at times, and none of my birds have ever had any problems with frostbite. I have found, on average, my coop is usually 10 degrees higher, than the outside temp. There you go.

 

[zekaryah]

Check to see if they r piling on top of each other if so they to cold they r really cold tolerant though

 

[WesleyBeal]

I'd like to see a picture of Wesley's historic house. My guess is replacement of those windows might be a good idea, but that depends on the vent system they built.

Looking, and rather surprised that I don't have any good ones around. I do have a couple videos, and have grabbed a screenshot of the front of the coop and the side of the coop from them.

Weather/time permitting, I'll take photos all around the coop, focusing on the features that were intentional for keeping chickens, in general and in this climate.

For now though....





I deemed it likely that this old coop would last at least this winter without falling down, and cleaned out half of it for my chickens. I need to ask folks in my wife's family how long they know this coop as stood there. As people passed, the coop became a place to store junk. Lots of broken glass, nails, and junk, plus a busted up shallow concrete floor.

I cleaned everything out of the half I was using, including what was left of the floor, and put in class-5 rock to a depth of 3 to 4 inches to help level it out and be sure I wasn't leaving anything exposed. I also went around the building filling in cracks with expandable foam where that would work, and nailing on plywood in places where the gaps were too big.

After that I created a wall dividing off the half of the coop I'd prepared with chicken wire and plywood. I put chicken wire over all the windows from the inside, and the access to the "attic." As the ground squirrels - who had made this coop home for decades - didn't have any trouble slipping through the chicken wire, I put 1/4 inch hardware cloth over the interior wall to a height of 4 feet, I think, and spent a couple weeks trapping the things. Seem to have convinced them to move elsewhere for now.

I knew I would be encircling the coop with electric netting, or I would of used half-inch hardware cloth over the windows.

Then I covered the floor with 6 to 8 inches of wood shavings. Since then I've added straw, and wood shavings.

I plan to "rebuild" this coop. There isn't much salvageable, but I'm going to follow the same design and size. I do plan to use a dirt floor, and not poor concrete.

Features that I've noticed, that I'll try to show when I take photos:

The wall with the windows is the south wall. If you look at the side photo, you can see that it is a good bit higher than the north wall. As a result, the solar radiation absorbed through the windows has less space to heat up than it would if the walls were the same height. Also, there is a roof in the coop at wall height, so still less interior space to warm up, and airspace above that acts as insulation.

The building is double-walled.

Those are some big cupola's on the top of the coop. Originally (one still has it in operation) there's a pipe that runs down from the attic to about 18 inches off the floor, that has holes perforating it for the bottom few feet. So the cupola's are - when working properly, drawing air from chicken height up and out of the coop. Right now, ceiling isn't air tight enough for this to really work, and the pipe still in place is of course over on the half of the coop I'm not using.

I'm sure there are other features to this coop. I need to research, as I know I've seen others built this way on old farms. People knew what they were doing, back in the day. I'd like to learn all I can from what they did.

 

[Noreaster Egger]

My coop is raised about two ft, and the front is wide open. There is no insulation, and no heat. Have winter temps here just below zero (Not including windchill) at times, and none of my birds have ever had any problems with frostbite. I have found, on average, my coop is usually 10 degrees higher, than the outside temp. There you go.

Cool...thanks. I've seen your coop before on here and always thought it was one of the better ones. My biggest concern is my leghorns. I sorta regret getting them last spring now, but they have definitely been fun to have in the flock and great layers. Some of the models next week will flirt us with near record low temps so that would put me in the -10F ballpark for this time of the year. We get a lot of cold air damming days too with low clouds, high humidity, and snow/sleet/freezing rain. It's difficult to keep it dry when it's frequently below freezing with a RH struggling to get below 80-90% outside.

I still may try some hay bales around the outside to have a better ground-floor "connection". I think mine is actually closer to 3ft off the ground...I think I ended up cutting 3 4x4s into thirds. Anyways...good stuff. I like banging around different ideas.

 

[Adalida]

The dilemma I keep having as I look at coop placement/ventilation/weather changes is, at what point is it cruel not to intervene in the protection of the animals.  We take horses, cattle, work dogs into a barn... and animals left outside and exposed realistically do die and freeze.  Realistically, birds have managed to survive many a winter tucked away in nests through snow storms and freezing temps, but as my pets and providers of meat/eggs and my responsibility - at what point is it reasonable for me to intervene?  I suppose, being as comfortable as I am inside my warm house on freezing cold days, I'm hard to convince.

As someone who gets cold easily and now lives in Montana, I pondered this same question a ton when I first got animals. My chickens and ducks have a snug coop but this week has been consistently -15 at night and hasn't gotten above 10 degrees during the day. I put down an extra thick layer of shavings for the birds to snuggle into but I still worry about them every night, although I worry less with each passing night. The first cold night, I went to check on them around 11 pm. I burrowed my fingers underneath their feathers and sure enough, their skin was warm. One of the Wyandottes was on the floor, snuggled up to my Muscovy duck. She's never done that so apparently she was chilly, but they seemed snug and weren't shivering so I left them there. I've decided to skip the heat lamp unless temps get below 20 or more.

 

[TerryH]

Looking, and rather surprised that I don't have any good ones around. I do have a couple videos, and have grabbed a screenshot of the front of the coop and the side of the coop from them. Weather/time permitting, I'll take photos all around the coop, focusing on the features that were intentional for keeping chickens, in general and in this climate. For now though.... I deemed it likely that this old coop would last at least this winter without falling down, and cleaned out half of it for my chickens. I need to ask folks in my wife's family how long they know this coop as stood there. As people passed, the coop became a place to store junk. Lots of broken glass, nails, and junk, plus a busted up shallow concrete floor. I cleaned everything out of the half I was using, including what was left of the floor, and put in class-5 rock to a depth of 3 to 4 inches to help level it out and be sure I wasn't leaving anything exposed. I also went around the building filling in cracks with expandable foam where that would work, and nailing on plywood in places where the gaps were too big. After that I created a wall dividing off the half of the coop I'd prepared with chicken wire and plywood. I put chicken wire over all the windows from the inside, and the access to the "attic." As the ground squirrels - who had made this coop home for decades - didn't have any trouble slipping through the chicken wire, I put 1/4 inch hardware cloth over the interior wall to a height of 4 feet, I think, and spent a couple weeks trapping the things. Seem to have convinced them to move elsewhere for now. I knew I would be encircling the coop with electric netting, or I would of used half-inch hardware cloth over the windows. Then I covered the floor with 6 to 8 inches of wood shavings. Since then I've added straw, and wood shavings. I plan to "rebuild" this coop. There isn't much salvageable, but I'm going to follow the same design and size. I do plan to use a dirt floor, and not poor concrete. Features that I've noticed, that I'll try to show when I take photos: The wall with the windows is the south wall. If you look at the side photo, you can see that it is a good bit higher than the north wall. As a result, the solar radiation absorbed through the windows has less space to heat up than it would if the walls were the same height. Also, there is a roof in the coop at wall height, so still less interior space to warm up, and airspace above that acts as insulation. The building is double-walled. Those are some big cupola's on the top of the coop. Originally (one still has it in operation) there's a pipe that runs down from the attic to about 18 inches off the floor, that has holes perforating it for the bottom few feet. So the cupola's are - when working properly, drawing air from chicken height up and out of the coop. Right now, ceiling isn't air tight enough for this to really work, and the pipe still in place is of course over on the half of the coop I'm not using. I'm sure there are other features to this coop. I need to research, as I know I've seen others built this way on old farms. People knew what they were doing, back in the day. I'd like to learn all I can from what they did.

I love it!! Too bad it's a bit far gone to save as is but I think it's great that you are going to rebuilt it. Love, love, love the cupolas!! Look forward to more updates.

 

[bustedchicks]

Adding a heater being it electric or fuel just sounds extremely unsafe in a chicken coop. If I were to heat it I would make a simple solar water heater to heat the floor. However there are numerous ways to heat and cool factories, buildings homes and even coops passively.

Sent from my SM-G900V using Tapatalk

 

[Adalida]

Adding a heater being it electric or fuel just sounds extremely unsafe in a chicken coop. If I were to heat it I would make a simple solar water heater to heat the floor. However there are numerous ways to heat and cool factories, buildings homes and even coops passively.

Sent from my SM-G900V using Tapatalk

Now I must know...your screen name intrigues me. Why or how are the chicks busted??