When to add some heat?

[Monk422]

Hello Peeps.
We live in central valley ca and it's supposed to get down into mid 20's tonite. Our girls have a nice sheltered coop w lots of straw but have never heated it. When's the time to add heat? New to the chicken keeping so advice needed. Thanx in advance.
Sincerely,
Mother Monk

 

[Fred's Hens]

They'll be fine. We northerners raise chickens with no heat, in temps much, much lower. Far below zero, in fact.

The sheltered coop and the straw are nice. As will be a bucket of warm water in the morning. As long as there is not horrid humidity in the coop, cold is not a worry. High humidity that frosts is.

Many emergency heat lamps are more a fire hazard than anything else.

 

[Monk422]

Ahhh thank you so much. Now just worried bout seedlings coming up and covering some shrubs.

 

[kidd42]

We are neighbors, we live in Valley Springs at a higher elevation and do not plan on adding heat. Our girls are doing just fine, give them some scratch before bed to help keep the body heat up. Now the 15 chicks we are brooding have been moved out of the unheated sunroom and are spending these frigid evenings in our dinning room.
Your girls will be fine.

 

[ScotianChick]

It's -11F her in Nova Scotia and my guys don't have heat. Yours will be just fine

 

[featherz]

was -26 here last month and -10 a few days ago. No heat. All fine. Don't add heat, they'll be ok!

 

[bobbi-j]

Fred's Hens :

They'll be fine. We northerners raise chickens with no heat, in temps much, much lower. Far below zero, in fact.

The sheltered coop and the straw are nice. As will be a bucket of warm water in the morning. As long as there is not horrid humidity in the coop, cold is not a worry. High humidity that frosts is.

Many emergency heat lamps are more a fire hazard than anything else.

There was a barn not too far from where I live that burned to the ground a couple of weeks ago. They lost 30 bred milking goats, several alpacas, and some mini donkeys. Cause of the fire - heat lamp that was plugged in for the new babies that were coming. As previous posters have said, your birds will be fine. It got as low as 20 below zero here in MN this winter. My chickens were fine in their unheated coop.​

 

[Monk422]

Well thank you for all the input so quickly. Feel much better.

Did I read here chickens like warm oatmeal?

 

[BuddhaChick]

The temps got down to 15F here in Rainier, OR. The roo and his two girls are new to me (just got them a week ago). Then we got snow two days ago and they havent come out of the coop once. I have been feeding them in the coop and put in straw over the sand floor. When I check in the morning their water is frozen solid. I did put a 100 watt light bulb in there, hoping it would add just a little heat to keep the water from freezing..didnt work. Today the girls didnt lay eggs (though they had been two days in a row). Now after reading about your chickens doing fine with -0 temps, I feel kind of silly putting the light in there. I will probably take it out tomorrow at mid day when the sun is shining the brightest....then the roo and girls can adjust accordingly (and sleep without the blaring light bulb)...lol...

 

[newchik715]

My girls are getting frost bite so i added a heat lamp to help get them through these record colds temps we are having. put vaseline on too.