Keeping chickens in winter.

[mommyoffive]

How do you do this?  We always sell ours before winter,  but now the kids want to keep them through winter and this year I am willing to do it . Do you have to buy a heater for the water?

We live in a place that can get 60 below zero.

Do they lay in winter?

Do they need a heater?

Should we insulate the the coop?

We normally move the coop every few days, how do you deal with the poop issue in winter?

[Kalmia]

I kept chickens in a place where it got down to twenty below zero, but never sixty below zero! We did lose two to the cold (the two that always refused to remain in the glow of the heat lamp). I am not sure it could be done without heat. That being said, the risk of a coop heaters and heat lamps burning down your barn is real as well. There are breeds of chickens that are more cold tolerant than others. You could research the most cold tolerant of all, and renovate your coop to local conditions. Remember, chickens need good ventilation even in the winter. And if confined for long periods of time over the winter, they appreciate windows with natural light.

Here is one link to cold tolerant chickens, but it might mean New England cold--not, say, Nunavut Territory cold. 

https://www.thecapecoop.com/6-chicken-breeds-perfect-for-cold-climates-and-2-that-are-not/

Here is a chicken blog from Alaska:

https://akchickens.org/getting-started/recommended-breeds/

Edited August 24, 2020 by Kalmia

[Amy in NH]

It gets down to -30 here occasionally, and -20 regularly, but only during the coldest part of each morning, not for whole days at a time.  When we kept chickens, we had a caged heat lamp chained, tied, and affixed in 3 different ways so as to minimize the risk of the coop burning down, and we had it on a timer so that it was on only during the early morning hours.

Chickens lay according to the amount of daylight they get.  If you mess with their lighting using lamps/bulbs, you can often extend their laying period, but it comes at a risk of taxing their physical resources.

[KathyBC]

Depending on snow load, think about your roof and coop access. Also keeping water open.

[Btervet]

We keep chickens year round, but -60 deg is REALLY cold for chickens. I would ask around locally to you to see what other people in a similar climate do. They will definitely need a heat source with it that cold, and the water will need a heater to stay liquid. 

[mommyoffive]

16 hours ago, Btervet said:

We keep chickens year round, but -60 deg is REALLY cold for chickens. I would ask around locally to you to see what other people in a similar climate do. They will definitely need a heat source with it that cold, and the water will need a heater to stay liquid. 

It doesn't always get that cold.  But in can.  Maybe even colder.  A year ago we had a winter that cold for a few weeks. 

[Donna]

We kept chickens over winter when living in NJ. DH set up a light bulb inside a cement block then we placed their water container on it to keep the water from freezing and another inside their coop which they sat on to keep warm when the temps got really low. They generally roosted together and their body heat kept each other warm.

[Guest]

31 minutes ago, Dotwithaperiod said:

I’ve always wondered this, too. The people that have chickens here tend to also have big barns, so I assume they spend the winter inside. But what if you just have a coop? Do they walk in the deep snow? Do they stay in the coop for 5 months? A chicken owner friend in TX told me she sometimes put Vaseline on their wattles and feet to keep them from falling off! I’m naturally lazy, and that seems like too much work, and too scary to think of their pain if I let it happen.

Mine don’t walk in deep snow; I shovel out their run and sometimes sprinkle straw down. They can get frostbite on their feet and wattles. However, the climate where I live is more temperate than the OPs. We don’t get deep snows every year and it is usually below ten degrees when it is coldest at night, but rarely below zero. 

I do have a heat lamp but only run it at night if it’s predicted to fall below ~ 20*. I am very careful to clean dust and cobwebs off my heat lamp before we begin using it. 

For watering, I keep two waterers during the winter, one inside the garage and one outside the coop. In the winter I switch them every morning so the unfrozen water is available to the hens.