What to do in a power outage at extreme cold temps

[WaveyCreekChickens]

Thanks for your input everyone!

 

[HumbleAmerican]

As an experiment.... use a thermometer next to the skin on a mild night (say 30-40 degrees) then measure on a low night. (Say 0-10 degrees F)

I'm betting they come out the same.

When I lived in North Idaho I wrapped my roost with plumbers freeze tape. The other I left bare. The non wrapped roost had everyone after a couple days.

I then tried 2x2 Square with rounded corners vs round. Everyone chose the square one.

This was done because I had a hen lose a toe to frost bite. I swapped to 2x2 and didn't have any further issues. Non heated/insulated well ventilated coop. Spent days at a time below zero.

 

[azygous]

People would be surprised at how well chickens generate their own heat. It takes some pretty extreme circumstances for chickens to freeze to death and then it's most likely due to not being fed adequately. The dangers of extreme cold is to the extremities. Care should be taken to prevent those conditions where combs or feet are vulnerable to frostbite. Large combs are most vulnerable and feet less so.

Two winters back, by roosters were stranded far from their coop overnight by two dogs that chased them off. When they returned after spending all night outside in 13F weather, they both had severe frostbite on their combs but their feet were fine.

One of the rooster had previously suffered his first comb frostbite in an unheated coop on a single digit night, but none of the hens were affected. Since then, I make it a point to heat the coops to just above freezing (low 30s) on very cold nights.

 

[Se7en]

I was worried about my chickens during the freeze and they did just fine. We did close all windows and leave the coop door open which is small and under the table that catches the droppings so no cold air was directly on them. Our run is covered and we just put a tarp around the side that the wind would come through. Just before the storm I cleaned the coop out and filled the feeder so that all I needed to do is check the water for the next few days. I changed the water every three hours due to it freezing. They did really well. I am so glad that I took the advice not to heat the coop.

 

[Jovian7]

We are having a power outage right now, due to a wet snow storm. It is currently not very cold (33*F), but it has us thinking about and preparing for when it is real winter weather and this happens. We are in Manitoba, Canada. Our temperatures last winter went down to -36*F, and not just for a short time either. The chickens needed their heat lamps on quite a bit. We don’t have a generator. We have a wood stove in the house.
My current emergency plan is, I would put all 7 chickens into a large dog crate and bring them in the house. Just wondering for how long they would be ok to be crammed in a small space together.
Has anyone had power outages during extremely cold weather?

I heat cinderblocks on the woodstove. Switch them out with a warm one every hour or so. Can also put metal water bowl on it to keep water from freezing.