The Official Forum of the Ameraucana Breeders Club > Housing, Health & Hatching

Heating for the winter

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Hannah Brush:
Looking for ideas for heating for cold months to come. We have 8x8x20 thanks

Don:
We've never heated our coops in NC even when the unusual cold days/nights happen.  These colder nights usually only happen a few at the time for us.  We don't have the extreme lows that the Canadian border states experience.  I wouldn't be surprised if some folks use heat tape or water heater bases to keep water open for the birds to drink.  I'm curious if the breeders in these states provide supplemental heat in their coops as a rule for the winter months.

Our best pens have wire on some portions of at least three sides.  This provides ventilation for our longer summer heat.  So we close up the north, east and western sides of the pens to stop drafts.  We might even close the upper wire sections on the southern exposure with plastic to capture a bit of the bird's heat from the roosts and any sun during the day.  We've always been told that condensation from closing the coops too tight would cause more illness.  We do offer them a bit of corn when we know the weather is turning to extremes for us.  This gives them a bit more calories for body heat and makes them a bit more active if offered in the form of scratch feed tossed on top of the litter. 

DeWayne Edgin:
You can use heat lamps or just put more birds together so their body heat can warm them up. The more birds the more heat they make. I also close off most of my pens. You have to make sure there is still good lighting in the pens also so the chickens keep moving around. I have an outside frost free water hook up for my garden hose, i can turn a valve off in my basement for the cold water and turn on a valve for the hot water which makes my water hot in my garden hose. The two valves makes it easy for me to adjust the water temperature so the water is not to hot. I use the warm water to thaw out the waterers and then refill them. I was told that giving chickens warm water in the winter, helps with egg production. Im not sure how true that is but i use it anyway to melt the ice. I have 20 chicken waterers and 4 rabbit bottles that i thaw out anyway and it takes a little longer but it works for me. If you use heat lamps in your coop, you can sit your waterer close to the lamp to keep it thawed also.

Russ:
i dont heat at all last winter was the first winter i lost more than 1 bird. I lost 6 and they were all bantams. We hit -40 or more with wind chills several times. If you do heat you better have a plan b if your power goes out.

Hannah Brush:
How do you stop frost bite
If you don't have heat

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