Extremely cold weather please help

[Tayloralexthomas]

Hi everyone,
This is our first year having chickens. We have 13. We live in Southern Alberta Canada which is usually known for their mild winters because of our chinooks. Every now and then we do get some colder weather so we weren’t to worried about our chickens, until this week when we ended up in a polar vortex. Our temperature highs during the day are -25C/-13F and at night it’s dipping as low as -35C/-31F.
Our coop is relatively large and luxurious in my opinion haha so we have added hay bails inside to close the space off to help trap heat. The girls have a heated closed waterer, it is well vented, and we’ve been using the deep litter method. The coop is also insulated but we cant seem to keep it warm inside. The temp usually reads 5 degrees warmer than the outdoor temp. So at night it can go down to -30C/-22F inside the coop. We’ve been going through this cold snap for a few days now and it’s not planning on going anywhere for at least another week.
They girls are definitely cold but they are still laying, and eating. We’ve been giving them warm oatmeal or veggies in the morning also.
So my question would be do we need to try and warm up the coop a bit and how?
We don’t want to use a heat lamp and I can’t seem to find ANY information online that is not contradicting or even talking about the cold weather that we are having.
Some ideas I’ve read/thought about are
-Using 5 gallon pails with hot water (I thought about adding a fish tank heater to keep the water warm)
-flat mounted heating pad for chickens (but I feel like our coop is too large)
Any advice would be greatly appreciated

 

[3KillerBs]

https://www.backyardchickens.com/articles/cold-weather-poultry-housing-and-care.72010/

The definitive cold-weather chicken article.

 

[Tayloralexthomas]

https://www.backyardchickens.com/articles/cold-weather-poultry-housing-and-care.72010/

The definitive cold-weather chicken article.

Thank you for this. We pretty much check all the boxes in this article however.

 

[Missjlee4377]

We got a bout of consistent -20s to -30 the past couple of weeks, southeastern Ontario, the girls are chilly and the tips of their combs look a little tender but I feel as long as you're checking off all the boxes when it comes to the coop you're just gonna have to believe they're built for this. I wouldn't add additional heat because they still need to be climatized to their environment and I wouldn't add hot buckets of water because that will put excess moisture in the air which can result in frostbite.
I have a lot of chickadees and canaries around my house and I always think if those little things can keep themselves going through the winter, my chickens in a proper coop will survive a week or two of the worst winter temps.
Not very helpful, but hopefully supportive! They're tougher than we think. Good luck.

 

[Missjlee4377]

After thought, the pads could work because they can come and go, not really as a space heater you know? Almost brooder plateish or you could invested in heated roost bars. I think its the feet, combs and wattles that are susceptible to the cold. That might help ease your worries.

 

[CheerioTheBuffRooster]

I highly suggest lining the outside of the coop in heavy duty plastic sheeting. We did it this year and it works excellent! It keeps out all the snow and wind, so the sunlight can warm it up. On some sunny 30 degree days where we live in Maine the coop can be 45 degrees! Also you definitely will need a water heater. Frozen water is dangerous because of dehydration in your chickens. Hope this helps

 

[webmistress32]

I would not bring anything to the mix that will add humidity to your situation. that's what will kill them, not the cold.

 

[Alaskan]

So my question would be do we need to try and warm up the coop a bit and how

If it will only be this cold for another week, figuring out suplimentental heat might not be worth it...

I do go over a few different ways of heating safely in my cold weather coop article.

I would maybe switch out the treat of veggies and oatmeal for something higher in protein and fat.

Also... do you have any of the run set up now with more sheltered areas?

 

[ChickensForEggs2500]

Wow! That's really cold. If you're worried about frostbite, you can put some Vaseline or coconut oil on their combs and wattles. Good luck!!

 

[MissE]

Hi everyone,
This is our first year having chickens. We have 13. We live in Southern Alberta Canada which is usually known for their mild winters because of our chinooks. Every now and then we do get some colder weather so we weren’t to worried about our chickens, until this week when we ended up in a polar vortex. Our temperature highs during the day are -25C/-13F and at night it’s dipping as low as -35C/-31F.
Our coop is relatively large and luxurious in my opinion haha so we have added hay bails inside to close the space off to help trap heat. The girls have a heated closed waterer, it is well vented, and we’ve been using the deep litter method. The coop is also insulated but we cant seem to keep it warm inside. The temp usually reads 5 degrees warmer than the outdoor temp. So at night it can go down to -30C/-22F inside the coop. We’ve been going through this cold snap for a few days now and it’s not planning on going anywhere for at least another week.
They girls are definitely cold but they are still laying, and eating. We’ve been giving them warm oatmeal or veggies in the morning also.
So my question would be do we need to try and warm up the coop a bit and how?
We don’t want to use a heat lamp and I can’t seem to find ANY information online that is not contradicting or even talking about the cold weather that we are having.
Some ideas I’ve read/thought about are
-Using 5 gallon pails with hot water (I thought about adding a fish tank heater to keep the water warm)
-flat mounted heating pad for chickens (but I feel like our coop is too large)
Any advice would be greatly appreciated

I'm in the same boat. -32 F air temp yesterday morning. Haven't been above 0 since Thursday and won't be again now until early next week. Most nights have been -25 to -30 F. Today was warmer. We actually made it to -3. The other days have been double digits below 0 for the high.

My chickens are not happy with the situation, and for some reason they complain like it's my fault. They are still laying, but even checking every hour and a half is leading to frozen eggs. I have not added heat yet. They are cold, and there has been a touch of frostbite, but I don't fear them dying due to the cold. They still sun themselves in the run during the day.

I have cut out all treats so they are only eating 20% chick starter grower, plus of course grit and oyster or egg shells.. The only exception was the 5 frozen eggs I cooked for them this morning. The dogs can only eat so many and divided among 18 birds, it wasn't much.

Chickens are tough. We have a harder time dealing with it than they do, so we worry about them more than we really should. I won't say I'm not tempted to add some kind of heat, but I haven't yet. I keep telling myself: Keep them fed, keep them dry, keep fresh water available. That's all you need to do.