Winter is coming...

[flyin-lowe]

How long have you had 8 chickens in that coop/run. Max number in that size should be 4, I think I read it's 16 square foot. Assuming your feed and water etc. are inside that coop you have less then 2 square foot per bird.
Back on topic, I have one of the heated dog bowls mentioned above. I have it sitting up a cinder block so it is a little higher and it does fine, they don't get in it. Last winter I had 10 hens and I would dump a gallon jug a day in it and that was enough for them.

 

[Ninjasquirrel]

How long have you had 8 chickens in that coop/run. Max number in that size should be 4, I think I read it's 16 square foot. Assuming your feed and water etc. are inside that coop you have less then 2 square foot per bird.
Back on topic, I have one of the heated dog bowls mentioned above. I have it sitting up a cinder block so it is a little higher and it does fine, they don't get in it. Last winter I had 10 hens and I would dump a gallon jug a day in it and that was enough for them.

Less than 1 year. Our ambitions were that we would have half survive but so far have all 8. It serves them all quite well

 

[Soon2BChixMom]

I used bird bath heaters with the rubber bowls.
https://www.farmandfleet.com/products/571160-farm-innovators-heated-poultry-fountain.html
I had a couple of the farm innovators 3 gallon heated water founts. They keep the roosters from dipping their wattles in the water. They will keep water thawed but they are very poorly designed. After a couple years, sunlight made the white part extremely brittle and they shattered.
I had one hanging from a tree that kept the water thawed all winter.
If you get a power outage, the water will freeze and it won't thaw the water in the moat when power is restored.
There are several other design flaws but half the battle is keeping it perfectly level.

Ah yes, I have a heated fount now. I used it last year, but didn't have the roo then. My trick for thawing the frozen water if the electric kicked off was to take a tea kettle boil some water and pour it over the frozen moat area. It seemed to work. But, I never had the whole fount freeze.

 

[Ninjasquirrel]

I use a heated dog dish too, I do put my regular 1 gallon water inside it because my Silkies get their crest and beards wet and walk around with icicles goatees and Mohawks. I think they are stepping in things and knocking over things because you don’t have enough room for eight birds. What is your snow load like? If you get a lot of snow what are your plans for the run area to keep snow from building up and dry as the coop is not large enough to keep them in for more than just sleeping.

Yes im aware its small. Chicken math got the best of us. We figured we would lose one or two so we got more than planned. Or snow load varies. Some years we've only gotten a few inches and some years several feet. We have the run mostly covered to prevent some of the snow getting in

 

[Ninjasquirrel]

I would like to reference this thread for those saying my coop is too small:
https://www.backyardchickens.com/threads/square-foot-per-chicken-question.1175674/page-2
Could I use more space? Yes. Not the topic. My birds just roost in the coop. They are out by 6am every day. It is in the plans to make an addition to the coop at a later date to accommodate for the space issue. Until then this is what i have to work with. Im asking for options for winterizing so not just advice on heating the water. I value all your advice thus far and would like to hear further options in order to make a decision. We love our birds and do not want to lose any so we want to have a safe winter.

 

[Soon2BChixMom]

I am in northern Indiana. Not mild winters this far north. Lol well, sometimes. My chickens survived a prefab last winter. No extra heat source except the fount linked above for water. We just used an extension cord. We also have a solar battery set up that you can hook an extension cord to. If you want info on that, I can ask my hubby about it.
As far as the coop and size - only you know your birds, we do not. Just make sure it is plenty well ventilated as I imagine 8 birds in there will make it nice and cozy this winter which means lots of moisture coming from their mouths. That could be an issue for you if the moisture has no place to escape this winter. I am not saying you don't have enough ventilation - just maybe evaluate your coop to see if it is adequately ventilated.

 

[woodenfarm]

Love that. Ive heard the water nipples not all birds will use though. If anyone has made this themselves i would love to hear feed back. Do you think it will work with the cups instead?

Have not tried to heat mine yet just added this spring.
Bucket from Lowe’s and nipples from tractor supply a lot cheaper making your own then buying ones that are done
I have 19 in my flock and all love it. It took a day or so for them to try it out but they got the hang of it.

 

[Ninjasquirrel]

I am in northern Indiana. Not mild winters this far north. Lol well, sometimes. My chickens survived a prefab last winter. No extra heat source except the fount linked above for water. We just used an extension cord. We also have a solar battery set up that you can hook an extension cord to. If you want info on that, I can ask my hubby about it.
As far as the coop and size - only you know your birds, we do not. Just make sure it is plenty well ventilated as I imagine 8 birds in there will make it nice and cozy this winter which means lots of moisture coming from their mouths. That could be an issue for you if the moisture has no place to escape this winter. I am not saying you don't have enough ventilation - just maybe evaluate your coop to see if it is adequately ventilated.

Last year was pretty mild. When my SO planned the coop he did not account for ventilation. Once i made him aware of the need for it we cut two holes for vents. We're gonna hook up fans to them to blow out air so it ventilates better. Im mostly concerned about heat because there have been winters where it was 0 with a wind chill that made it -10.

 

[Soon2BChixMom]

Last year was pretty mild. When my SO planned the coop he did not account for ventilation. Once i made him aware of the need for it we cut two holes for vents. We're gonna hook up fans to them to blow out air so it ventilates better. Im mostly concerned about heat because there have been winters where it was 0 with a wind chill that made it -10.

I don't think they need to worry about heat. Like I said mine were fine in a prefab. Made to withstand nothing.
The birds will be acclimated and their feathers will act as insulators. There will be plenty of heat to keep them warm just from their bodies. Think about wild birds, they do not have a heated coop or shelter. Just as long as they can get out of the wind, they will be fine.
We had -30 windchills here last year. Brrrrr....
If you do heat the coop, other concerns come into play - Coop fires and what to do when the electricity is out because now the birds are used to the supplemental heat.
I follow people who are farther north and or have worse winters out west than we can ever imagine - they do not heat their coops.
I might not have the standard ventilation quoted here either, but more than I had last year (we built a coop this past summer). I didn't use a fan either. I am considering adding a "screened" door of sorts that can allow more air to flow through in the summer though. But even with the temps we had this summer, my birds did fine.
It's all personal preferences. I chimed in with what I do and what works here. It's really up to you as to what you feel comfortable doing with your own birds.

 

[Trux]

I grew up on the farm in the early 60's (giving away my age here lol) our coop was never heated and we lived in mid central MN. The coop as I remember it was roughly 20 x 50, had a open cupola and several windows. When going out in the winter mornings there was always vapor coming from the vent windows and the cupola. When you walked into the coop there was a significant temp difference, and the girls always did fine. We had to rotate waterers as we didnt have heated founts back then. usually did it 3 times a day as I recall, we had somewhere around 100 birds including Roosters