Used a baby monitor and light for first night in the coop....aghhhh!

[True Grit]

Quote:
Hi from Orono! I was trying not to use heat although I was set up for it, but we had that really cold night last week and I put the 250 watt ceramic heat emitter in a high end heat lamp on a 20-30 degree thermo cube and I'm glad I tell you, glad. hahahaha My little crossbeak is much happier now and the coop temps aren't so high that they won't go out and eat and drink outside in the coop, which has plastic around to cut the wind. I have a thermometer/hygrometer in the coop with a digital readout in the kitchen so I can keep track of what is going on out there.

 

[Where The Wild Things Are]

I have a wireless thermometer in my coop, I'm not sure I could handle a monitor. It's bad enough watching the temps going up and down...but trying to interpret all the crazy noises they make? Yeah, I'll have to pass! I would end up totally bonkers.

 

[Carrie Lynn]

Wild Things,
Yeah, it's not easy having the monitor on and trying to sleep.
It's like listening to every sound a newborn makes. Well, I assume, I've never had children.
We've had wind and the tarp makes a bit of noise and I find myself wondering if it's a raccoon rustling the tarp or the wind.
So this weekend I need to make some improvements, turn off the monitor, or bring them back into the puppy cage in the garage to sleep.

True Grit, where did you find a 20/30 Thermo Cube? Didn't know they made them.[/b]
Again, thanks all for sharing/supporting/helping a newbie through her first winter!

Sorry...couldn't undo errant bold font

 

[Barry Natchitoches]

Quote:
Regular heat lamps are fire hazards, and so I steer away from them in the henhouse and in my mobile chicken tractor.


In the main henhouse, I used to have two flat panel, 400 watt ceramic heaters -- the kind that are designed for barns and henhouses. But one of the ceramic flat panels literally cracked in half, so now I just have one out there for my birds. They are pretty nice (over $100 bux each - I got mine at ShopTheCoop.com ), and I wouldn't mind the price if it weren't for the fact that one of those heaters only lasted two winters. The other heater is still going strong.


In the mobile chicken tractor, I use a 150 watt ceramic heater that screws into a regular heat lamp fixture, the kind you find at pet stores in the reptile section. It works great. This fixture, too, is pretty safe from a fire standpoint. The cost of that heater was a little over 20 bux, and I just used the same reflector light fixture that I use in my home made brooder during the springtime "baby chick" season.

 

[True Grit]

Quote:
I had to get it online off ebay. There were several, not cheap. The heat lamp I have is not metal but a much better heavy duty plastic from Premier 1 Poultry Supplies online. I have a 250 watt ceramic heat emitter in there and it has been working great. I understand the thermo cube may fail but the emitter is pretty gentle and not liable to overheat the coop, especially in these temps. It is my first winter too so I'm winging it and taking advantage of all the good advice on byc. The monitor would drive me crazy too but I trust my coop is as predator proof as I can make it right now. In the spring - electric fence.

 

[joebryant]

Quote:
I had to get it online off ebay. There were several, not cheap. The heat lamp I have is not metal but a much better heavy duty plastic from Premier 1 Poultry Supplies online. I have a 250 watt ceramic heat emitter in there and it has been working great. I understand the thermo cube may fail but the emitter is pretty gentle and not liable to overheat the coop, especially in these temps. It is my first winter too so I'm winging it and taking advantage of all the good advice on byc. The monitor would drive me crazy too but I trust my coop is as predator proof as I can make it right now. In the spring - electric fence.

Why did you want one that doesn't come on until it's down to 20*F, let alone go off when it got up to 30*? If it stays 21* - 32*, your water will always be frozen. Seems to me that you'd want ON at 35* and Off at 45*.

 

[True Grit]

Oh, the waterer is outside with a heat tape around it and on a birdbath heating pad and main feeder is outside too. It seemed like 40 inside was a little high compared to say 0 outside. With the 20-30 it will go from 22-27ish in the coop at night if it is very cold out and 32 or so during the day. I have heavy plastic strips over the pop door so if they do want to go inside during the day it stays warmer in there even with the pop door open.

 

[Carrie Lynn]

joebryant,
I thought those temps (35-45) were higher than I would like, I want them adapted to lower temps, just not miserable in really cold temps.
Also, I do have a heated dog bowl I plan to set my waterer in, so far the ice has not been a problem if I check it before/after work.

 

[2DogsFarm]

I'm a relative Newbie myself - this is only my 2nd Winter with chickens.

That said: my hens were just 9mos when they spent their first Winter in my unheated coop.
It's a converted metal garden shed - maybe 12X5? - and not drafty but not airtight either.
The 5 of them did just fine, even when temps dipped well below zero.
When windchills were really bad, I left them confined to the coop, but otherwise they had access to their fenced yard.
They supply a lot of warmth themselves - the coop always felt considerably warmer than outdoors when I opened it every morning.

This year I have two 4mo chicks that seem to be handling the cold just fine.
They go right out to freerange, even when my older hens settle down in the coop grumbling. The Big girls do NOT like snow. Or wind.
Both of which they seem to hold me personally responsible for correcting
I am falling short in their opinion

As long as they have access to water - I have a 1gal heated dog bowl in the coop - and some feed to keep the furnaces stoked they seem to do perfectly well.

 

[Carrie Lynn]

Thanks everyone