Weather station is reporting possible windchills of -15 to -25 tonight

[MichiganWoods]

From WoodTV 8's news website.

Information from the National weather service cautioned that temperatures will be bitterly cold as a strong cold front comes into the region carrying a blast of extremely cold arctic air. Wind chills could drop as low as 15 to 25 degrees below zero.

I am going to run my little space heater out in the coop tonight because I don't have any huge bales of hay to stack around it. These temps are just scary.

What do you guys do up in Canada where it gets bitter cold?​

 

[The Chicken Lady]

Ah, Wood TV 8. Do you read Bill's Blog, by any chance?

I'm interested in tomorrow's windy winter weather...

 

[chickiebaby]

Sounds like something out of Laura Ingalls, don't it?

 

[Mahonri]

Stay warm up there folks.... we are still drying out from the first of the week... 60 degrees outside and sunny at present... but after Monday it won't get over 60 for the rest of next week. We are suppose to have rain on the 24th and 25th. (We've been well below normal in temperatures all month... you know global WARMING)

 

[sunnydee]

I am about 2 hours south of Canada but it got about 4 below last night. I left my girls' red heat lamp on until 11:00 p.m. then shut it off (they will NOT sleep with any light one...even if red) They were fine this morning. Water was froozen solid, but we got out there before they even woke up and gave them some nice warm water and I scrambled up some eggs for them.

So far today we have gotten 5 eggs out of 6 girls...so I use that as an indicator that they are fine! I do leave their heat light on all day...to keep their water from freezing. I let them outside of their coop for about an hour to scratch around some (I put scratch food and BOSS down for them). Then they all went back in the coop as if to say...it's too cold out here!

My coop is very well insulated with foam board and heavy plastic and bales of hay around the outside walls.

 

[tinners204]

Here in southern Iowa right now it is 18, tonight it is going down to -4, Tomorrow the high is -1 and tomorrow night -10 Wind chills horrible.

 

[kodiakchicken]

Michigan,

Be so, so careful with the space heater. They scare me to death.
Those red heat lamps put out some great heat, so you might hang one or two of those.

Just make sure all your drafts are sealed and if you have any birds with large combs, cover them wih vaseline to keep them from getting frostbit.

Best of luck and let us know how it goes!

 

[MichiganWoods]

The Chicken Lady, I do read Bill's blog. I sent my husband out earlier to get a few last minute supplies to tide us over for a few days if it gets so bad we can't go out.

chickiebaby, is that Little House on the Prairie, per chance? Used to watch that a lot when I was a kid.

Mahonri, oh yeah, we know all about that pesky "global warming" here... (darned snow!

) Hopefully things won't get too soggy for you guys!

sunnydee, that's good to know. Unfortunately, my coop does not have insulation. We were starting to install it, but a gal who lives near us that has chickens told us her horror story of hundreds of mice living in the insulation. Her chickens survived last winter without insulation, but I'm not sure if she was running heat out there or not.

tinners204, brrrr. Hope you stay warm too!

kodiakchicken, I tried really hard to find the safest possible heater to use out there. It's got an auto switch off function if it gets tipped over, or if there is a power surge and such. I ran it when I first had them out there but now that they are feathered and there is a heck of a lot of dust in the coop, I've been hesitant. I've got two red heat lamps running out there. Each one is 250 watt. I'll going to monitor them and only start to worry if it drops below 18 or so. When I woke up this morning it was registering 22 in the coop and they were all fine.