# How cold is too cold??



## Chippets

It's -4 right now, going down to -12 tonight but the weather channel says it feels like -25 currently. How cold is too cold for chickens? I have silver laced Wyandottes and Easter Eggers. Right now the thermostat says it's 27 in the coop. What do you all think??


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## powderhogg01

I reckon as long as they are not getting blown on by cold wind, they can huddle tofgether and make it through the cold. Penguins live in the worst there is... Same idea, good feathers and huddle together.


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## Apyl

We got to -40 last year and all was fine. No idea what the coop temp was, but its not insulated and just a plywood A frame. Granted at -40 they mainly hung out in the coop out of the wind and I did give them a fresh bale of straw the weekend before. The biggest issue is the water freeze in 30 minutes if that, so on the really cold days without snow I keep bringing water out to them. When I do my coop re-build in the spring I am definitely doing something about the water set up.


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## Chippets

Yeah, we keep bringing out warm water for them to drink. Last night the temp gauge in the coop went down to 20 before it died on me. I made them scrambled eggs last night so they had a warm meal before bed too. I just feel so bad for them!!! We aren't even letting them out of the coop with the wind chill being so low. They have plenty of straw to snuggle in. But they line up on the roost and let their bodies keep their feet warm. Can't wait for spring!


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## kjohnstone

Temp last night 0 F, no coop, greeted today by all 8 girls, collected 4 eggs, the $1 Yard sale heated dog water dish is nicely thawed (WORKING) Wouldn't it be nice if the roost was heated? They are survivng well, but they definitely don't like the cold. 4 amber-whites, 2 australorps and 2 ameraucanas.


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## powderhogg01

-15out this morning here at my spot in colorado. Birds all seem fine..


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## 7chicks

Keeping my babies warm. Heating their house off our woodboiler so there is no added cost to heat the coop (which we did insulate - the walls and ceiling).


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## dcfrenkel

When is is below 0 I usually put a lamp in the coop, but they don't always get under it, so I don't know if they really need it.

I have never lost one to the cold. I live in New England and we can have some bitter winter nights.

My coop is not insulated and has gaps at the ceiling for air ventilation.


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## Chippets

Well, it's reassuring to hear everyone has had their chickens survive bitter cold. But I still can't get them to eat! They just won't eat their FF anymore, and have been leaving what I put out. They did eat the eggs they laid today - they have been cracking; not sure if from softer shells during this time of year or from freezing? And now they all have messy butts. What in the world is going on?


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## kessy09

We are -45 with the windchill today (-37 without). That's in Celsius. They have a tarped run with two feet of deep litter (afoot of leaves and a foot of wheat straw). Everyone is out happy and eating and digging around. Have a bit of frostbite on the comb of my coronation sussex rooster but only on one point. That is regardless of using Vaseline every 2nd night on them. Barn cats are refusing to leave the run/coop. Got pretty clawed up this morning trying to get them out of there. I don't like it because they poop and pee in my lovely run. Changing water every 30-45 minutes. It's too cold for any of the heated dishes to work. A few more of my hens are getting close to laying as faces are getting sooo red and they are making an awful lot of noise. No heat, no lights, no insulation.


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## Regina L

Our temperature has been in the single digits (Farhenheit), and my 5 young girls seem to stay in their coop (4' x4') most of the time. Their run is about 8' x 12' fenced with chicken wire and tin roof. This is their (and mine with them) first Winter, and I'm not sure of how cold is real cold for them! 
I put a 40watts light inside their coop and it has been on 24 hours a day for the last week. Does that light on affect them or their egg production in any way?
I only get 2 eggs a day, and for this past week, every time I've checked, both eggs are frozen and cracked  I've been going at different times in the day. 
I read about people who surround the run in plastic. Will that create too much moisture for them?
Any suggestions will be greatly appreciated.


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## kessy09

It's a white lightbulb? That is definitely going to mess up their internal clock and I imagine put enough stress on them to disrupt laying. You don't even need to use heat, chickens can survive and thrive anywhere that crows and pigeons can. If I were you, I would just keep the light off altogether and let things progress naturally. If you definitely want the egg production then only keep the lights on for a TOTAL of 14 hours a day. If you are very concerned about the temperature, then use a red lightbulb overnight.


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## Chippets

I just don't get these birds!! They huddle in a pile 8 feet from their coop in the cold wind. We go out and pick each of them up and place them in the coop - they are so cold they don't move or even make a sound. Why don't they move themselves out of bad weather??!!


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## powderhogg01

Is the coop secure? When I was having issues with predators the birds would not go in the coop knowing it was a death box. Now that it's secure and cold they rarely leave the coop


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## moose123

We had very cold temps that hung around over a week. It didn't get above 10 during the day and dropped to -10 to -15 at night. I have a 15 by 20 coup with six young hens. I use the deep litter method. The cold got to my Cochin and Buff Orphington. I almost lost the Cochin. Temps have risen the past days and both birds are happy and healthy again.


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## Chippets

powderhogg01 said:


> Is the coop secure? When I was having issues with predators the birds would not go in the coop knowing it was a death box. Now that it's secure and cold they rarely leave the coop


We've not really had predator problems - yet. But they don't like to go in for some reason. Every night before the cold snap they would be out in the backyard or the pen. We tried putting sort of a porch light on the coop to draw them in as it got dark, but they still wanted to be outside!


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## Chippets

moose123 said:


> We had very cold temps that hung around over a week. It didn't get above 10 during the day and dropped to -10 to -15 at night. I have a 15 by 20 coup with six young hens. I use the deep litter method. The cold got to my Cochin and Buff Orphington. I almost lost the Cochin. Temps have risen the past days and both birds are happy and healthy again.


Ooh, glad to hear your birds are ok. We are also using deep litter. The hens are really getting coop happy with all this cold weather though. When I go in there they practically attack me! They want to jump on me and talk to me so much they don't even go for their food! Then I'm trying to not step on chicken feet because they are all around me and I can't tell if they are underfoot with the softness of the deep litter. It's just crazy!


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## Regina L

Kessy, the temps are back to double digits (teens), and I turned the coop light off, and told the "girls" that Kessy told me to do it lol! I'll find a timer in the garage and will have them have the14 hours of light a day. At what time do you think I ought to have the lights come on? Towards the evening or early early in the morning? I only have 5 young hens and they roost inside their little 4'x4' hen house as you see in my profile picture.


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## dcfrenkel

Rlabrum said:


> Kessy, the temps are back to double digits (teens), and I turned the coop light off, and told the "girls" that Kessy told me to do it lol! I'll find a timer in the garage and will have them have the14 hours of light a day. At what time do you think I ought to have the lights come on? Towards the evening or early early in the morning? I only have 5 young hens and they roost inside their little 4'x4' hen house as you see in my profile picture.


Sorry to jump in here. 
I have my light turn on in the afternoon around the time that it starts getting dark out. The 14 hours includes natural sunshine, so you can save a bit of electricity by supplementing the daylight rather than overlapping with it. 
If you have the light come on very early so that their day starts early then they will tend to lay eggs in the morning. If you have the light come on in the pm like I do they will lay eggs later. I have done it both over the years.

Also, they don't really need 14 hours of light. It is all regulated by the pituitary gland which is affected by length of darkness. So you just have to break up the darkness. Many farmers will save electricity by having the light timed to come on once or twice in the night for an hour. That breaks up the length of straight darkness and has the same effect but uses less electricity than having a light on for several hours. It is really cool to think about.


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## Energyvet

I would be concerned that if they are eating eggs and not eating the food, then the food has been corrupted. Get a new bag of food and toss what is in the feeders. It could be moldy. Those chickens could be starving and that is why they are eating their eggs. That is a bad habit to encourage by not providing other food. Just my input here.


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## kessy09

Rlabrum said:


> Kessy, the temps are back to double digits (teens), and I turned the coop light off, and told the "girls" that Kessy told me to do it lol! I'll find a timer in the garage and will have them have the14 hours of light a day. At what time do you think I ought to have the lights come on? Towards the evening or early early in the morning? I only have 5 young hens and they roost inside their little 4'x4' hen house as you see in my profile picture.


I personally don't use lights at all so I'm not sure what would be the best for egg production. However, everything I've researched, and experiences people that I've spoken to gives me the impression that the lights should only be used in the morning. That sudden lights that come on as they are preparing for bed can cause confusion. That hens tolerate sudden light much better in the morning than they do sudden light in the evening. I can't imagine how confusing sudden lights coming on and going off through the night would be-not to mention disruptive to sleep cycles but I guess when your only purpose of having hens is to have them pump out as many eggs as possible then I think their comfort would be the last concern (not referring to you specifically or even to the poster who suggested this as she never said she actually does it either-just to whoever finds that type of thing acceptable). The pituitary gland (in humans) produces prolactin which at certain levels will either stimulate or suppress ovulation. Those receptors are most active between the times of 1am and 6am (which is when nursing mothers should not nurse if they want to induce ovulation to attempt another pregnancy) so it is very interesting that not sleeping during those times would induce the same effect in chickens. It is neat albeit not very nice.


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## dcfrenkel

kessy09 said:


> I can't imagine how confusing sudden lights coming on and going off through the night would be-not to mention disruptive to sleep cycles but I guess when your only purpose of having hens is to have them pump out as many eggs as possible then I think their comfort would be the last concern... It is neat albeit not very nice.


I will have to say that I am hurt by the implication that I don't care about my girls. I love my birds and spoil them rotten. I have my light turn on at 3:30 pm which is before they are even heading inside to roost. It stays on for a few hours which I think is actually nice for them because as it is getting dark they go into the coop and drink a bit and eat a little and easily choose their roosts. It is not sudden light that turns on and it always goes off at the same time. They are not caught off guard or surprised by it at all.

On yucky days, I turn it on in the morning so that if they spend more time in the coop they are not in a dark coop (the windows are not very big) and it still turns off at the same time in the evening as always.
Also, if you want to compare your birds to humans and assign them human emotion, you could just as easily claim that people tend to get depressed (SAD) with shortening days and less exposure to light maybe my full spectrum light actually makes my chickens happier during the short days and long nights of winter. And the light has the same effect even is the bird (or person) sleeps through it. Wakefulness is not necessary.

I care for my birds, and as anyone who has a backyard flock knows, we keep them because we love them. They do not make us money. The eggs are not cheaper than buying from the store. We just love our birds.

Please do not attack us here and accuse us of not caring for our girls simply because we have different practices.

This is a forum for people who love their birds and want to be supportive of each other in a community of others who also have chickens and love them. 
We are all on the same team here. We are not enemies. Please do not attack and shame people.

I have only ever tried to be supportive and helpful and kind to people here. I do not deserve your scorn.


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## Apyl

Lets please refrain from putting anyone down or their methods down. Each person raises their flock differently, some see their chickens as pets some as livestock. No one person is correct or wrong. Future negativity from this thread will result in it being locked.


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## kessy09

I'm sorry you feel that I was referring to you. If you read back my post carefully I made very certain to note in it that I was NOT referring to you at all. I think you might have missed that sentence because you didn't include it in your quote. I was specifically talking about the practice to have lights come on and off throughout the night-not the practice of using lights in general. I also agreed that I thought it was interesting and gave some background information as to why.


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## dcfrenkel

kessy09 said:


> I'm sorry you feel that I was referring to you. If you read back my post carefully I made very certain to note in it that I was NOT referring to you at all. I think you might have missed that sentence because you didn't include it in your quote. I was specifically talking about the practice to have lights come on and off throughout the night-not the practice of using lights in general. I also agreed that I thought it was interesting and gave some background information as to why.


Maybe I shouldn't have felt offended. I did see that you made a disclaimer about not speaking directly to me, but I still felt that we should be careful about making judgmental statements about people who have different practices than we do. They don't deserve our judgement.
I may not have my light come on in the middle of the night, but I don't think that it would necessarily be upsetting to a flock. If someone else does have the light come on in the night it doesn't mean that they are mistreating their birds. 
Again, I think that there are ways to put a bug in someones ear without making them feel judged or attacked.
"I would worry that it could have X effect on my birds which is why I don't do that" is a great way to make I statements without accusing anyone of being a bad person who mistreats their animals.
I appreciate that you love your flock, as we all do, but please try to be aware of how the things you say may come across as if you are telling others that they are jerks. No one ever hears a message when it is presented that way.

I say all of this in the spirit of keeping this forum a fun and friendly place where people can not only share cute chicken stories and ask for advice, but people can also answer those questions and talk about how they raise their flock without having to worry about being chastised.

We are all crazy chicken loving brethren here.

Sorry for getting so defensive. I really come to this site for the comradery and do not want to disrupt that in any way.


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## kessy09

We will simply have to agree to disagree then. I don't feel my thread was attacking at all, nor was it intended to be. And I don't feel I should be scolded anymore about it. I said sorry and it's very difficult to infer tone of a post without hearing it directly from the person so all communication over the internet/texting/email really should be taken with a grain of salt. And I do truly feel that having the lights come on and off without allowing the hens to have a decent rest period is 100% about egg production. There is no other purpose for it. So my comment about it being for the hens to pump out as many eggs as possible is completely accurate. It's what they do in factory farms. Have you ever been to a factory farm? It's heartbreaking and no, I don't have ANY respect for those kinds of practices, not an I going to pretend to for the sake of someone's feelings. Maybe that's why I came off so harsh in regards to that one point. I agree that camaraderie and support is an nice thing here, but to be honest, it is not my number one thing...or probably even my top three things. I come here for advice on certain specific issues, education from those more experienced on broader issues, and to share resources of legitimate information.


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## inunokanojo

I have a 250 watt heat lamp in my coop that stays on 24/7. In the winter it's clipped to the windowsill and wired to the rafters so that if it should break from the mount for any reason, it won't start a fire. It'll just dangle harmlessly from the roof. During the summer months it gets clipped to a corner of one of my beehives and I shine it at the window to provide light and scare off predators.

I don't particularly like keeping the light on all the time but I'm paranoid about predators. We lost 5 of our girls over the course of last year (our first year). Keeping a light on 24/7 was the only thing that kept them safe. Granted, last year I hadn't planned on even having chickens but my brother got some, then didn't want to mess with them so he gave them to me to raise. He cobbled together a coop for them out of an old playhouse he had built for my niece. This year, one of my other brothers built a big coop that is predator proof but I'm still paranoid. Lol. Having the light on all the time doesn't seem to bother them at all. It's had no negative effects and it keeps them warm and they come in at night, hop up on the roosts and go right to sleep.







Here's a pic of some of my boys and girls under the lamp. During the really cold week we had they stayed in. I put food & water in the house and left a small crack in the door so they could go out if they wanted but they stayed in.


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## kessy09

Your situation is different. It's a red light. Red lights don't register on the same spectrum as white lights so that's why they can be used without disruption to their sleep cycles. A bright white light 24 hours a day would be very different.


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## powderhogg01

Here is my flock eagerly gonbling up the FF. I have a deep litter, but it's froze solid, several inches of. Snow on top and then I just spread hay or straw over the crusty snow. 
My birds are all in good health, not laying much, but in the canyon here I barely get 6 hours of sunlight.. So I can't blame them. Once the holidays are over I am installing some lights in the run to help them out a bit.


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## powderhogg01

powderhogg01 said:


> Here is my flock eagerly gonbling up the FF. I have a deep litter, but it's froze solid, several inches of. Snow on top and then I just spread hay or straw over the crusty snow.
> My birds are all in good health, not laying much, but in the canyon here I barely get 6 hours of sunlight.. So I can't blame them. Once the holidays are over I am installing some lights in the run to help them out a bit.









not sure why y pics didn't load the first post
It's 0 f when I took this pic this morning. The birds thrive in cooler temps, but once the ground froze am the forage stopped I pretty much keep them penned up


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## nj2wv

Looks like the same birds I have. I am putting a light in too. We eat them at about seven months and keep a few so we can hatch the eggs out. Next year we will eat these layers and keep a few of these that hatch so we will always have eggs and meat.


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## inunokanojo

kessy09 said:


> Your situation is different. It's a red light. Red lights don't register on the same spectrum as white lights so that's why they can be used without disruption to their sleep cycles. A bright white light 24 hours a day would be very different.


I did not know that!  Last year the light we kept on at night to scare off predators was a white light but it was hung outside and just angled towards the house. It didn't seem to bother them much but it also didn't light up the whole interior either. That's great to know that there is difference between using the red and white lights. I had just been wondering about that a few days ago.


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## SilkieBoy

I keep an infered heat light in all the time! As it is in average -15 and I want my birds to have the option to sit under the heat light if they desire it! My silkies are 7 months old and they stay in their coop all day, as it is too cold to go outside! 

They are laying eggs regularly, so I guess they are happy!! Can I expect them to continue laying eggs throughout the winter? 

Thanks!


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## powderhogg01

I they see laying now they should keep laying. My hens complete stopped laying for a few months, looking forward to the sun staying out longer and my hens laying again.


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## TNchick

*15 degrees*

Here in West Tn, we have had cold temps for our region. At night around 15 degrees. My birds coop is constructed of wood and not insulated. There is a tarp to keep out drafts and leaks. We set up an amber heat lamp that stays on all the time now. They still graze in the run during the day, and huddle up at night. So far my hens stopped laying for nearly an entire month, but they started up again, just like before. My ducks are the only birds who have not gone back to laying. They also don't seem to mind the weather as much as the chickens.


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## SilkieBoy

Thanks for the advice!! I am thrilled that they should continue to lay!!! I plan to collect some eggs in Janaury and incubate them!!


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## Keegs

You guys have it easy!!!It got to -45 F by me!!! (Wisconsin ) good luck it's been a harsh winter all around!!!


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## cluck13

To me - all your temperatures are toooooo cold. Aussies complain that where I live is cold. They need to read these posts. I hope that your Spring is just around the corner and you all may start worrying about the heat.


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## TheChickenGuy

I think once wind doesn't blow directly on them, they can survive extreme low temperature. Their feathers are very good insulators.


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## Gd4sumthn

I always have a red light bulb in the summer and a red heat lamp in the winter. Never had a problem even when it burned out. You can put Vaseline on their combs to keep them from getting frostbite.


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## tammy

@kessy, wow! That was So interesting! Thank u for sharing!


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