What is "cold" for a chicken and prepping the coop

[Ccort]

The article I just linked is from @Alaskan, who is expert on cold climate chicken care.

My understanding is that if they chickens are dry and out of the wind they should be fine.

My birds in their Open Air coop weren't even remotely bothered by the few nights we had down into the teens.

Ok. Thanks for the article! It's those horrible cold times that worry me when we have several days in a row of 0 degrees or even below. And two of my Barred rocks have huge combs. Hilariously huge, actually, for one of them.

 

[Ccort]

Mine didn't, even below 0F. Although it was high single digits to mid teens F most of the time from Christmas through February. Even the two leghorns. Pictures are inside and outside last January.

No issues at all with combs or the cold?

What did you do to winterize?

 

[Ccort]

Just cover them with clear plastic for the winter. Or with furnace filter if you'd lose too much ventilation that way.

All you need to do is to stop the wind from blowing through hard enough to ruffle the birds feathers.

https://www.backyardchickens.com/articles/cold-weather-poultry-housing-and-care.72010/

Your chickens don't eat/peck at the plastic?

 

[3KillerBs]

Your chickens don't eat/peck at the plastic?

My windbreak tarp is on the outside of the hardware cloth.

I put it up early because of Hurricane Ian. Otherwise I'd have waited until December.

 

[aart]

Even when our temps are zero or negatives?

In Kentucky?!

 

[saysfaa]

No issues at all with combs or the cold?

What did you do to winterize?

In March, when temps were back up in tbe 20s, I left for a few days and dh and I had a bit of miscommunication about who had done the chicken chores; they ran out of food and water for not terribly long but long enough to be thirsty. I worried about the points of the comb of one of the five. The tips weren't white, quite, but they looked a little off-colored. and didn't turn black, quite. That was Spice, the brown leghorn in the picture in the last post (taken after that incident, if it was an incident.)

Otherwise, there was nothing at all in their behavior or appearance that indicated they were bothered by the cold. On second thought, they did roost on the other end of the roost pole as it got colder last year. And look fluffier when it is cold.

I winterize by closing the eave vents with pool noodles, and putting the windows into the window frames. And a chunk cut off a pool noodle in the stupid 2x2" opening where the trim between the doors doesn't meet (the builder was somewhat sloppy about some things). This year, I will close off the ridge vent also. That leaves a 4x7' permanently open door in the side of their 8x10' coop.

 

[Ccort]

In Kentucky?!

Yes.

 

[Henfla]

What kind of plastic is that?

Vapor retarder. Not all people use it when they insulate things like chicken coops, but it keeps the insulation dry so it's smart.

 

[Henfla]

If you put insulation and then plastic over it, won't they peck at that?

Would a tube heater be fire hazard?

Won't weed barrier get wet and drip during snow?

Trying to start with how to appropriatley cover the ventilation that obviously needs covered.

If you insulate the coop, you'll have to cover the insulation with panels of some sort.

An IP55 tube heater is much more safe than an heating lamp, and it tolerates dust because of the IP classification.

 

[WI chickens]

Well.. it seems like many people in this forum think that chickens are just fine with temperatures below freezing, but there is a difference between surviving and thriving.
Personally I would be very stressed out about keeping my chickens in that coop when the temperature drops below freezing.
I live far north in Norway where temperatures now are around freezing, and it will be around -10 and -20 degrees celcius (I believe that converts to between 14 and -4 fahrenheit) for most of the winter. I have an insulated coop with IP55 tube heaters and hope to keep the temperatures inside the coop for over 5 degrees celcius (41 fahrenheit). Right now with freezing temps outside it's 10 degrees celcius over the tube heater on top of their roost, and experienced norwegian chicken owners mostly believe that the chickens should have temperatures like that for the chickens to thrive.

For you I would at least install IP55 tube heaters that are much more safe than heating lamps.

This is pictures of my coop during and after insulating it. You can see the tube heater under their roost.
View attachment 3314798

View attachment 3314800

When I had an insulated, much tighter coop, many of my birds suffered from frost bite and I had several that got respiratory issues. One of those died.

My current coop is uninsulated, has the entire front open and I have no frost bite, no respiratory issues, and the chickens happily play right in front of the open windows, or outside in their covered run in the winter. Two winters ago, I had two nights in a row at -40F, which I looked up in a conversion table and found, interestingly enough, is -40C. We get -30F occasionally and -20F every winter, sometimes for weeks at a time. Maybe experienced Norwegian chicken owners disagree, but I believe my chickens are thriving now, and I know they were not before.

What happens if your tube heaters go out when your chickens are acclimated to 40F and the temperature is -20F? We lost power last night at my house for a few hours. My chickens didn't know the difference.