Will a trailer coop without insulation be ok for cold winter? pic

[Chickenfortress]

Make it easy! screw plywood over the openings, and cut a hole in it for a vent. Put a door over the vent with a couple hinges, or make shutters. You have so many gaps between those boards that I doubt you need more ventilation anyway.

 

[pdpatch]

If you are going to expect lots of eggs you need to keep the coop up around 45 degrees. anything less and egg production will drop off, as the hens spend to much energy keeping warm. At 20 to 30 degree eggs production can drop off to half of what would be normal.


Make sure there is ventalation an the methane from the chicken waste will build up to toxic levels.

Since the studs are on the outside I would put insulation in there and cover with more boards or plywood. and a layer of paint . The gaps on the inside boards are big enough for a chicken to get at anything that would be used for insulation.

 

[MaransGuy]

Fresh Egg, I live in the same town and do not have any insulation. In fact, I don't know of anyone around here that does. Insulation usually adds way too many problems and the birds simply do not need it. The birds generate a lot of heat and moisture and that needs to be eliminated from the coop quickly. Protection from drafts and wind is what you need to concern yourself with. If you do not have enough ventilation the moisture build-up in there will be pretty bad and that is what causes frostbite, not the cold. I will rarely move a small radiator style heater into the coop for short perods but only if something is going on in there that makes me want to do so, i.e. illness or making sure no frozen combs before a show. Last winter I let too much moisture build by not changing the litter quickly enough after some heavy rains and got frostbite on a rooster while the temps were only in the 20's. Once I kept a better eye on things they had no problems, even when the temps were down to single digits. As one more example, last winter we had particularly nasty storm, very windy and cold (single digits I believe), but it only dropped about 6" of snow. I went outside the following morning to let the birds out and discovered that my little frizzle hen somehow never made it into the coop the night before and was outside all night! As soon as she saw me she came running around the pen and rejoined the flock as if nothing had ever happened!

Richard

 

[MaransGuy]

Quote:
I never found that to be an issue here. It would be next to impossible for me to keep those temps over winter. It depends a lot on the breeds but my marans, orps and EE gave me an egg a day, nearly every day, right through winter. I would have to pull eggs at least twice a day to keep them from freezing. Our high temps rarely exceed freezing for at least a month or so during mid winter and lows are below freezing for at least three months, max low of -20. I will say that they do eat ALOT over the winter though!

 

[freshegg]

I have a cupula type cellar entrance that I covered the stairway with a wood floor that I was going to keep them in , its like part of the house so less wind but I dont think the ventilation would be good enough. also I got chicken fever and bought 5 more chickens so I have 8 RIR and 5 golden comets and the little room is only like 5x8 so I doubt its big enough. if it was big enough I could run a water line to the waterer from the cellar and put a light in. with the trailer there will be wind all directions and Ill use a extension cord for light.

 

[omelette'smom]

This is the first winter with my chickens. how do you keep the water from freezing? I don't plan on spending $50 on a heated water dish base. I heard of heat tape-do you plug that in? what options to i have??

 

[freshegg]

this is my first winter too. If I use the trailer I'll buy a heated waterer but if I use the cellar way entrace room it should be warm enough