Winterizing The Coop!?

[goodheart101]

This will be my first Michigan winter with chickens and ducks. I went on craigslist and found a couple of heated water pails, and then I bought some zero start low energy use florescent lights that I am going to put on a timer so that I have them on during daylight hours and off at night. I also put in 3 windows 2 of which can be opened with screens, for ventilation. I bought the plastic tubes for the lights just incase they should bang them, but they are up pretty high and all my RIR are pretty plump so it would be a pretty good ways for them to get up there, especially with a wing trim. I am insulating a section of the barn and that is where they will go, so we will see how it all works out. The floor is sand right now, and dry so we will see how it goes for moisture. I was reading about housing chickens for the winter with ducks and the method where you turn the hay, as long as you have 10 square feet per bird. I was going to try that method since it says they can be housed all winter without having to clean the floor and then in the spring you have excellent fertilizer for your garden. I guess the hay is suppose to be 12 inches deep. Has anyone else heard or used that method and the success of it? I really enjoyed reading everyones thoughts on housing for the winter.

 

[patandchickens]

Quote:
This is within the general "food group" of what people on here often mean by "the" deep litter method (DLM) -- you will find it discussed very extensively in many threads, if you search. Bearing in mind that there is no "the" about it -- there are a lot of different ways to do that general sort of thing, varying considerably in how much bedding is used and how much composting goes on as well as other factors -- so you totally canNOT take what happens for one person with one set of tactics and assume it'll work for you with a slightly different management tactic.

Anyhow, addressing what you are proposing: Sure, try it. Have good ventilation -- humidity can be a real problem with that sort of thing in some circumstances (especially, I would think, with ducks involved!) and it is *humid* cold air that gives you frostbite, moreso than dry cold. But be prepared to adapt what you're doing to what you're seeing... you may find that you need to split the ducks and chickens into separate (and separately-ventilated) enclosures, or clean the wettest parts out more often, or add a *lot* of fresh bedding and clean most of the stuff out several times during the winter, or increase ventilation, or things like that. YOu'll just have to wait and see, because how it goes depends SO much on a lot of subtle things about your individual setup.

Good luck, have fun,

Pat

 

[LynneP]

good heart- I'm not sure how big your heated buckets are, I saw some smaller ones at Princess Auto that would be good for hens. In case you have the big ones, consider sinking a clean clay flower pot or other suitable item upside-down in the bucket to keep a hen from falling in and getting too wet to get out. Alternatively, some people make a sipping barrier to go over the top- just something to stop those weird accidents birds can have! I have electric water bowls (1.5 gal) but I don't use them with chicks for the same reason.

BTW we put our snow boards up and some vinyl and we're expecting 3 days of rain then a possible freeze-up. Got in done in time!