If you’re in the eastern US, you have probably felt the chill of the latest polar plunge.
This cold snap came very early and it set quite a few record lows, both for nighttime and daytime temperatures.
What did this mean? It means our animals suffered a premature cold snap, and they weren’t very happy about that!
…. However, they had a safe place to sleep since we winterized the coop we built over the summer.
It also took out our fall garden incredibly quickly, which we discussed last week.
(That just means we’ll be doing some winter-sown, early spring gardens!)
When we found out about the impending cold weather, we set about to prepare our animals for the plunge, in order to keep them safe and healthy.
Our new coop was built over the summer, yes; but it wasn’t yet winterized.
With our coop’s dog-ear plank walls, the wind blew through freely; this was a lovely feature during our sweltering southern summers, with all of this humidity and endless, relentless sunlight.
So, how did we winterize over 160 sq ft of wall space?
Cheaply and efficiently, by using what we had:
Feed bags!
Do Chickens Need to Be Protected During Cold Weather?
If you are in the deep south or a hot desert region, you likely need no protection at all.
However if your winter temperatures can swing into the single digits, you’re going to need some protection.
-20’s, -30’s, -40’s? You’re going to need some serious winter protection for your birds.
Chickens need a way to stay warm during the coldest days of winter, but they’re also quite the hardy animals.
You need to prevent issues such as frostbite, while minimizing exposure to the wind.
There are several ways that you can combat cold weather injuries and fatalities, from choosing the right flooring option to controlling ventilation and maintaining the right breeds for your growing zone.
Common Cold Weather Injuries and Lasting Effects
Chickens most definitely can get too cold.
Generally, the biggest cold weather injury is frost bite; cold weather could be fatal, but this is usually due to a lack of protection from the wind and elements.
If a chicken falls victim to frostbite, the lasting effects could include:
- Loss of tissue on comb, wattles, or feet.
- In severe cases, chickens may lose entire toes or feet, in areas with frigid winters.
- Roosters may lose fertility.
- Hens may suffer from reduced egg production.
- Injured chickens may not be as cold hardy in the future due to their injuries.
Which Chickens Are Susceptible to Cold Injury?
Some chickens are far more sensitive to winter weather and are more susceptible to cold injuries than others.
Sometimes the susceptibility is temporary, which means you’ll only have to keep an eye on those birds for a short time.
Take great care in monitoring your birds during severe cold snaps, and keep a special eye on birds that meet the following criteria:
- Immature birds under 16 weeks old.
- Birds that are in the middle of molting, reducing their ability to stay warm.
- Chickens that are over 6 years old, who may have a hard time in colder weather.
- Broody momma hens with chicks.
- Chickens with previous injuries that may not have full plumage (such as hens with bare backs or those who have been attacked by predators.)
- Smaller, daintier breeds of chickens. (One of the reasons I love a mixed flock that produces mixed, resilient birds!)
- Chickens with finer feathers, such as silkies.
- Chickens with less efficient feathers, such as frizzles, that aren’t able to store body heat well.
How to Winterize a Chicken Coop
Winterizing a chicken coop involves a few blatant steps:
- Eliminating wind and drafts
- Maximizing ventilation to reduce humidity
- Protection from rain, ice, and snow
- Maximizing natural heat production and heat retention
Protection from the wind, rain, ice, and snow is most vital; however, increased humidity can result in frostbite, which is where ventilation comes in.
So, let’s winterize our coops and keep our chickens safe!
Frugal Living: Cheap and Free Chicken Coop Options That WORK
We’re all about saving a few bucks; we also love to recycle as much as we can.
Many of our fans have absolutely loved our frugal homesteading tips, some of which you can find here:
- Is It Possible to Start Homesteading on a Dollar Store Budget?
- 30 Ways to Save Money on the Homestead
- My Affordable $1.25 Idea for Stopping Squash Vine Borers and Saving Seedlings
Let’s move along to our budget-friendly, super frugal, and very homesteady list of ways to make winter-proof coops possible without breaking the bank.
#1: Feed Bags for Winterizing Coop Walls and Stopping the Wind
Feed bags are an all too common sight around here.
We have bags upon bags, stuffed to the brim with even more bags!
It’s simply a by-product of chicken math, you know?
I hate to throw all of that plastic away, and love trying to find new uses for it.
Thus, they have been re-purposed into an insulating wallpaper!
Those upcycled feed bags are incredible at sealing out the wind, and I find that they also help to retain heat.
Yes, I know that sounds crazy considering they’re just sacks made of woven plastic strips; but it’s true!
Steps for Winterized Feed Bag Coop Walls:
- Grab empty feed bags, and cut off the bottom hem. Remove any string or paper.
- Once the feed sack has opened into a tube, cut along the side seam from open end to open end.
- You will now have a flat sheet of plastic; match a corner up with the corner of your coop’s wall.
- Staple the feed sack in place, smoothing the feed sack out as you go. eliminate any wrinkles or pockets of air.
- Overlap feed sacks by roughly 2″ in order to prevent drafts; to save staples, overlap a second feed bag before securing the first completely.
- Tip: If the winds and temperatures, or precipitation, get harsh where you live, try doubling up on feed sacks or leaving them intact for a 2 ply wall covering.
#2 Using Tarps in Place of Feed Bags
If you can’t gather up enough feed bags, use what you have and fill in the rest with some cheap tarps!
Our local dollar store carries tarps, 4’x 6′ tarps to be specific. In our coop, we would have required 4 tarps with a few feed bags covering the slack along the height of the coop walls; this would have been a $4 expense, which is incredibly cheap (and truth be told, much faster and easier than preparing and stapling up the feed bags! Again, we’re aiming for frugality and using what we have.)
#3 Deep Bedding Method (Composting Works!)
I absolutely love the deep bedding method!
Now, it can produce some humidity in the coop, so be sure that you have adequate ventilation to protect your birds.
The deep bedding method works because it combines greens (chicken poop) with browns (straw, hay, wood chips, saw dust, pine pellets, whatever you use!), allowing the coop floor to compost in place.
This compost produces heat as the chickens mix it, keeping them much warmer during the coldest nights. It may only increase the coop temperature by 10 or 20 degrees, but this can be a significant difference for your birds. For ours, it makes life much more comfortable.
The best part is, most of us are already using bedding; however, instead of removing old bedding when you add new, just add the new bedding on top!
Not only will this process increase the warmth in the coop, it’ll also encourage insect activity: AKA, free feed for your chickens.
This is not an ideal situation in coops that don’t have a plastic or dirt floor; the composting process will destroy wood floor coops, so don’t attempt this if your coop has a wooden floor.
The bedding should be cleaned out every spring, at which time it can be added to your gardens!
#4: Trapping Solar Heat with Black Paint/Solar Heating System
If you paint the walls of your coop black, they will warm up quickly on sunny days. This will in turn warm everything within the coop, including the bedding and soil. This heat will be stored through the evening hours, slowly being radiated as the night goes on. This allows the birds to get comfortable and huddled, producing and sharing body heat, before the colder early-morning air seeps in as the last of the heat dissipates.
You can also build small solar heaters for your coop instead of painting it black, which may be more visually pleasing. This can be built with a box, aluminum cans, spare glass (such as old windows), and a bit of pipe!
#5: Added Protection During Cold Snaps
As a protective measure, you could cover your birds’ combs with Vaseline or your own DIY Frostbite Balm in the evening on the coldest nights of the year. This helps to protect against frostbite. The comb is usually the first part of a chicken’s body to suffer cold damage.
This isn’t exactly coop winterization, I know; however, there’s a new homesteader that’ll eventually find this blog post, and they may not know about this incredibly cheap, simple, and easy way to protect birds from frostbite.
(If you’re that homesteader, I’d recommend binge-reading this blog; we have a lot of golden nuggets here, for you!)
Why We Avoid Artificial Heat
Some people rely on artificial heat sources, such as heaters and heat lamps.
We don’t. We’re not the only ones who avoid adding heat to the coop.
Firstly, it just doesn’t get cold enough here to justify the risks of artificial heating, or the added electric expense. At the absolute worst, we’ll see a dip of up to -5°F, and that’ll be a one time thing for roughly an hour or two at most. As a matter of fact, I haven’t seen a temperature that low in at least 8 years; the lowest temperature I’ve seen in the last 5 years is 3°F, between the hours of 4 and 6 am on a cold January morning. That was during one of the worst cold snaps we’ve had in 5 years. As you can see, we’re nowhere near the temperatures that many states in the Midwest see, and let’s not even discuss Canadian weather.
Secondly, the risk of fire can be quite high- as is the case when you mix dry, flammable material (wooden structure and dry bedding) with a heat source. This isn’t a risk I’m willing to take, especially when I know I can protect my birds with many other methods.
Tips for Keeping Your Chickens Safe from Cold Weather
These tips will help you to avoid cold weather injuries and losses among your birds:
- Prevent broody hens from sitting during cold weather, as chicks are sensitive to cold weather.
- Provide plenty of roosting space in one area, allowing the birds to huddle together comfortable.
- Keep the coop as dry as possible, eliminating rain and moisture.
- If floors are wet, add more bedding immediately.
- Keep wind out of the coop by sealing up cracks or holes in walls; the feed bag trick works wonders!
- Be sure that there is ventilation just beneath the roof; this is the best place to place ventilation.
- If birds are not properly feathered, bring them indoors if absolutely necessary.
Choosing Cold Hardy Breeds in Cold Zones: It Makes a Difference!
If you live in an area with cold winters, you should choose largely cold hardy breeds. The above photo is of some of my pullets, a cold hardy breed called Barred Rocks. These tend to be the heavier breeds, as they are usually able to withstand winter’s chill much better. In addition, you should choose breeds with pea combs if your birds are getting frostbite on the comb. Here are some of the breeds that many homesteaders choose when trying to build a cold-hardy flock:
- Plymouth Rock (Barred Rock)
- Orpingtons
- Brahmas
- Rhode Island Reds
- Australorps
- Wyandottes
- Salmon Favorelles
- Delawares
- Cochins
- Buckeyes
- Welsummers
- Marans
- Dominiques
- Jersey Giant
- Barnevelder
How do you create ventilation but not have drafts and/or air infiltration. Please advise. Thank you!
Hi, Sheila! For most coops, ventilation is either just beneath the roof of the coop, or it is provided with a small vent at the top of a wall. In all technicality, you’re going to have cold air that seeps in there, especially on the coldest nights, when you don’t have heat inside of the coop; however, that is preferred over the moisture in the air. With the vent at the top of the coop, warmer, humid air will rise and escape through the vent, pushing the cold air back as it does. As the warm air moves up, cold air rushes to fill the space from below- thus, you want your coop sealed tight in its lower half, preventing extremely cold pockets in the coop. If you combine a deep bedding method with proper ventilation, your coop would stay warmer. Our coop has an opening all the way around under the roof, and there is a 1×2 open space above the coop door that doesn’t get closed off, that faces south. However, our coop still stays much warmer than the outside air! The feed bags have stopped the drafts and wind, and the deep bedding keeps it warm through composting- it’s an incredible system that works for us. I was actually thoroughly surprised at how warm the coop can be, so I understand any doubtfulness!
Could you use the deep bedding system with linoleum floor or slate tiles? We have a wooden floor on our coop. We dont have chickens as of yet, planning to this spring.
Thanks.
Hello Brian! I think the biggest issue with the deep bedding method is whether or not it’s leaking and rotting your floor. If you could install tiles with a water proof barrier, I think it would be just fine! Linoleum could potentially work, but liquids would penetrate the flooring over time, I’d think. You’ll have to closely inspect the floor each time you clean it out (as spring arrives, and as fall arrives) to be sure that nothing is penetrating the flooring and reaching the wood, but I think it would do quite well! I also recommend trying to opt for a more heat resistant grout maybe? And sealant? Since the composting activity can get quite warm, you’d want something that’s able to handle it. Of course, you’ll want to keep toxicity in mind. I know that makes everything a bit more complicated, but those are the most important factors to consider that you might miss as a first time chicken owner!