The Most Controversial Topic Among Chicken Keepers
While picking up her order, one of my egg customers asked me if the chickens had heat in their coops to keep them warm and comfortable when the temperatures dip like they have this past week. Little did she know, that question is one of the most controversial topics in chicken groups all over the internet!
I’m not opposed to heating our coops when it’s necessary. I feel, as their keeper, it’s my job to keep them happy, healthy and comfortable. In the summer, I run fans to blow hot air out of the coop and then cooler air in at night to keep them comfortable. Turning on a heater is just a natural extension of those comfort measures.
Sadly, we learned last winter that two of our roosters, Rederick and Lucky, are especially prone to frostbite on their combs and wattles so they tend to now get special treatment to help minimize this risk and prevent them from getting frostbite again.
Lucky seems to have circulation issues. He minds the heat more than any other chicken we have and he can get frostbite at temperatures that it shouldn’t be possible to get frostbite at. He’s a bit of a high maintenance dude for having such a laid back personality. Because of his intolerance to cold, Lucky has a heater in his coop and it gets turned on when temperatures are below zero. We had heat on for him most of last winter and will for this winter as well. It definitely increases the power bill but it’s the least we can do knowing he will suffer frostbite if we don’t.
Rederick was kicked out of the coop last February by his brother, Levy, and he got frostbite on his comb and wattles from hiding outside where Levy wouldn’t pick on him. I moved Red into his own coop with a heater and hot water bottles to snuggle up to for warmth (because he didn’t have any hen friends yet at the time) but the damage had already been done to his comb and wattles. He ended up spending a lot of time in our house last winter while he recovered. The tissue that was frostbitten last year is more likely to be frostbitten again now that it has been damaged. I’ve found that Rederick is fine with cold temperatures, he just needs to stay out of the wind. His coop does not have heat currently but I monitor in case it’s necessary and I take extra care to keep him out of the wind.
Aside from those two, we’ve had some late molters who needed help to stay warm. Poppy and CeCe decided to molt late and then found themselves half naked and shivering in the colder temperatures. Poppy was given a heater until her feathers grew in enough to keep her warm again and she’s fine now without. CeCe (who is still molting) lives with Lucky so the heater in his coop is pulling double duty.
If someone is sick, injured or has to be separated for some reason then they will also have heat while they recover. Recovery takes longer when you’re cold and using your energy to stay warm instead of heal.
For the most part, though, the chickens don’t need heat. Generally they just need a dry, draft free place with good ventilation, lots of bedding, and friends to snuggle up with. All of the birds here have those things and, aside from the few cases mentioned above, they do perfectly fine without heat.
If the coop is sized appropriately for the number of chickens that live in it, the body heat of the chickens warms the coops several degrees over the outside temperature as long as the doors are kept closed. When it’s really cold or the windchill makes it feel really cold, I sometimes don’t open the doors to let the chickens out of their coops for the day. It’s always my goal to let them out for the day if I can though, they definitely prefer going out. There are usually only a handful of days all winter when I don’t let them.
Each coop has an attached run/pen that has a tarped roof. The walls are also wrapped in heavy plastic sheeting similar to a greenhouse to prevent the wind from blowing directly on them. The chickens are protected from the elements out there but the run is a much larger space than the coop and their collective body heat doesn’t help to keep them warm like it does when they’re shut in.
Our roosters are most at risk when it’s cold. Not only do they generally have more comb and wattle tissue to freeze, they are serious about their job of protecting the hens. As long as one hen is outside, some of them (Rederick and Lucky, in particular) will stand out and watch over them even if they’re freezing cold. With up to 9 hens per rooster, there is usually at least one hen outside at any given time so they will stay out all day whether the weather is suitable or not. I swear Red and Lucky would literally freeze to death before they’d go into the coop and leave a hen outside. They definitely live for their ladies.
What Kind of Heater Do I Use?
The heaters that I generally use are panel heaters. The one in the picture below is the exact one we’ve purchased, we have several of the same one. It requires electricity so you do need to have power run to your coop to be able to use one. I have 12/3 extension cords run to each of my coops to power the cameras year round, the fans in the summer, and sometimes heaters in the winter.
If you’d like to look, this is the link to buy the panels we use on Amazon. I am not affiliated with the company in any way and am not paid for referring you to check it out, I just like the product is all.
The panel heaters aren’t really meant to heat the coop as a whole although they do a bit if the coop is smaller. They mostly just warm the space immediately in front of the panel. This allows a space for the chickens to warm up if needed but, since it doesn’t raise the temperature of the entire coop much more than a few degrees, it doesn’t prevent the chickens from acclimating to winter temperatures either. It just takes the edge off. This past Monday when it was -10 degrees outside, for example, it was zero degrees in Lucky’s 32 square foot coop with the heat on high.
I like that the back of the panel stays cool so it can be mounted on the wall. Lucky likes to sit on his roost and look out the window so the heater in his coop is mounted under the window where he sits. He sits on the roost and watches what’s happening outdoors while the heat rises up from the panel to warm him sitting just above it. It works wonderfully. If they want to, the chickens can lean right against the panel for short times too. The panels do get hot enough that you wouldn’t want to lay your bare hand on them for long though, especially on high.
If it gets really cold, I have heat lamps with ceramic heat emitter bulbs (like in the photo below) as well. They will heat the coop much more than the panels and they warm a much larger area too. I use the ceramic bulbs instead of the red heat lamps because they don’t make any light, just heat, so they don’t mess with the natural sleep cycles of the birds if they’re left on overnight. Ceramic bulbs are considered less safe than the panels but, when I use them, the bulbs are checked daily to make sure that they’re turned in tight and any dust that settled on them is wiped off each day too. The lamp based is securely mounted to the ceiling and can’t fall. It’s also mounted high enough that the chickens can’t reach it to mess with it. There hasn’t been a need for anything other than the panel heaters in two years now so they don’t get used often. I like to have the option, just in case, though.
Whenever we are using a heater of any kind in a coop overnight, there is always a smoke detector in the coop that will sound in our house in case there are any issues. During the day the coops are monitored via camera, our TV displays all 16 chicken cameras at once so we can keep an eye on things.
I use these same bulbs in our brooders when we’re raising chicks. When I use them in the brooder, I have a dial switch that’s heavy enough to handle the wattage wired in line. Turning the dial does the same thing as a dimmer switch for a regular light bulb and it, effectively, turns the temperature of the bulb up and down. This allows me to leave the heat lamp at the same height for the entire brooding period and just turn the dial to change the temperature.
Hopefully that answers the question of what we do to keep the chickens warm and comfy when the temperatures dip. While most of the time the birds are able to weather the weather without any help, I definitely give them a little help when they can’t. If you have any other questions about how I care for my chickens, just ask! Their welfare is my first priority and I’m an open book.
