Winter insulation

[RunnerWhisperer]

I am also concearned about my ducks getting cold as it get's closer to winter, I have read that Runners can handle the cold weather. Marysville Wa get's mild winters but it can dip down to the 20's sometimes. So far we have an insulated plastic dog house in their pen. I have it filled with straw for now. I was wondering if I would need to provide a door and or a light for some warmth during winter? I also considered taking the dog house off the ground and resting it on a couple of fence posts.

 

[reksat]

I live in western maryland and the winters here can get cold and blustery mine is not insulated and i dont intend to,but from what i have read the chickens can take the cold better than the heat so i guess it helps to have chics that are more tolerant to this cold rather than exotic breeds or some other breed. jmo.

 

[TruGritCkn]

Crazy Winters up here in north eastern Montana. We will be insulating with interior wood sheeting walls and exterior siding. I know a gal that had her chickens in an old building with no insulation or heat and her chickens lived through a brutal winter. She had 30 some birds. I think they get warmth from numbers so I have 27 chickens in hopes they can huddle up some. But I still want the coop to be insulated. I do not want to see my chickens freeze. We had a couple nights that the wind chill was -50 and the regular temp was close to that plus incredible snow.

 

[AinaWGSD]

Our coop is *technically* not insulated, and the only complaint I got last year from the chickens (our first winter w/chickens) was that there was strange white stuff all over the ground. There was one day when I decided it was "too cold" for the chickens and wasn't planning to let them out until it warmed up a little when the sun came up, but my plan was foiled by my forgetfulness the night before. I had left the pop door open accidentally and every last one of the chickens was in the run when I went out to give them liquid water! After that, I didn't worry about them being "too cold" much. They even started laying in January, just as the temps got really cold. I say "technically" because we did not put any sort of insulating material in the walls. But we do have a 4" air pocket between the outside walls of the coop and the inside walls of the coop, so the air pocket does sort of act as insulation against temp. changes. We also have windows on 3 of the 4 walls that take up a large portion of the walls. We did wrap the North and West sides of the run with tarps and place straw bales against them to cut the wind. Mad a huge difference in the temp. in the run. I do not supplement heat or light as I feel a heat lamp or light in the coop is a fire hazard, especially since we'd have to run extension cords across the lawn to get electricity to the coop. The only thing I plan to do differently this year is to add a roof to the run (so hopefully I won't have to shovel the chicken run before I shovel the driveway) and wrap more of it in heavy plastic (leaving the top 2 feet or so open for ventilation).

 

[CatUT]

I live in Utah were we can get winters close to 0 and summers over 100. We insulated our coop with plywood walls and syrofoam in between. We haven't done a winter yet, but we've had some hot summer days and the coop has been cooler on some days than the run.

 

[duckinnut]

I insulated the walls and the roof bays. It still gets cold in the coop,enough to freeze the waterer but keeps the wind out. The roof bays are insulated up to a ft shy of where the roof eaves are so the air will flow through. Winter Noreasters here in Mass can get ugly,not to mention where I live is a coastal town. Didnt bother to cover the run because the snow comes sideways. But the added perk from insulation was the heat shielding it does especially in the roof bays. Keeps the coop cooler that the outside temp in summer by at least 10 degrees.

 

[wingless]

Our coop is not insulated and we used no heat lamps or other devices; walls are a single layer of plywood, and roof is plywood covered with asphalt shingles. Our winter-hardy birds (Faverolles) did great in our Michigan winter, and went outside every day. I did pile 6 hay bales around the run to give them some relief from the wind and snow while outside.

I think someone on another thread said it isn't the low temperatures that they have a hard time dealing with, it's the big temperature differentials that they can't adjust to. So my hens built up enough feathers and down to keep them warm in the uninsulated coop, and those also kept them warm outside during the day. I expect that if I had heated the coop they would have created less insulation for themselves and may have been unable to go outside on the really cold days. Not sure, but I can say that my hens looked very happy and content in the cold Michigan winter, and it was a pleasure to see.

 

[Yashar]

I agree with the previous post.

Here is a quote from page 80 of Modern Fresh-Air Poultry Houses (1924)

In regards to open-front houses:
" To keep fowls in such a house in climates where the thermometer may drop from zero to 40 degrees below should seem to many poultry keepers the height of folly, because it might seem to risk the health and comfort of the fowl. That has been one of the great mistakes of the poultry industry. The fact is that a house constructed on this principle, if make sufficiently long from front to back, say 18 to 20 feet or more is not only highly comfortable, but affords the best abundance of necessary fresh air. No matter how hard the wind may blow, it cannot penetrate any great depth into the interior of such a house,. During one of the worst wind and rain storms ever experienced in Plymouth County, Mass., Dr. Woods says, in regard to his open-front poultry hose, that ' the wind could not be felt at all in the house at a distance of four feet from the open front. The fowls were comfortable and happy. A little water came in thru the wire screen, but only a very little, and less than one yard of the floor immediately back of the wire front screen receiving a wetting."

I guess people used this method also in Canada with good results.

I was thinking of trying this out on one of our coops.

 

[LN2008]

Kansas doesn't normally go too far below zero. That being said, I did raise the coop 18" above the ground and insulate the floor. I hope that'll help protect the girls from the snow. I also plan on tarping the coop to some extent. We'll see what else I do (my coop is in progress)

 

[ll]

We get some wicked snow storms here, last winter was impressive.

We used pink & yellow rollout fluffy insulation in the walls and styrofoam in the ceiling (styrofoam is easier to put up!)
The extra/leftover styrofoam was put into the walls too.

I read that mice like to live in the fluffy stuff ... I recommend the styrofoam for that reason, and because it is way easier to handle.

(all insulation covered with plywood, photos on page)

Good luck!