We're in our first winter with chickens in Alberta. We've already had some temperatures below -20 (and everything so far has been great). I know when it gets REALLY cold (-40) we might need to keep the birds in their house all day. Their run is full of all sorts of toys, mirrors, perches, ladders, etc. I purposely haven't put anything in their house for their entertainment because they only use it for laying eggs and sleeping. But should I put something in there for those (hopefully just a) few days this winter when it will be bitterly chilly? If so, what are some great ideas that take up little space? I don't want my hens to turn on each other.
We have 4 hens. We're doing the deep litter method with hemp bedding (probably about 7 inches deep right now).
The "living space" of the house is probably about 3'8" by 3'8" (it was 4x4 but we lost some square inches to the insulation). The nesting boxes are outside of this so those aren't included in these measurements. We have 1 roosting bar that is 4 feet long and a foot away from the back wall. They have a heat panel on the back wall which I can operate from my phone at different heat settings if it gets really cold (I have a hygrometer in there that measures the temperature and humidity which is also connected to my phone so I can keep an eye on it all times). (I'm amazed at how much their little bodies heat up their house through the night!) The christmas lights on the ceiling are for me more than the chickens - I turn them on for a few seconds to check the inside of the coop when it's dark outside. I'm not worried about drafts or ventilation.
Their pop door is manual so I go out every morning/evening to open/close it. It's smaller now that what is shown in the picture. I enclosed part of it so that only one girl at a time can go in/out.
I COULD open their pop door on those bitterly cold days. Do some chickens stay in the coop and some go outside? So far all of ours have spent every day outside in their run. They only go in to lay their eggs and then come right back out. I'm shocked really by how hardy they are. We did get a hybrid breed that is "designed" (for lack of a better description) to be both cold-hardy AND have a good laying record. (They're Lohmann Browns.) I don't want them to develop any bad behaviors inside their house in the worst of winter.
So to circle back to my question for you seasoned chicken veterans in cold lands.... should I put any sort of toy/entertainment inside their house for those -40 degree days?
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Thistlewick Smallholding - Chickens & Sheep (for now)
pollipazzi's 365 project
