Frozen chicken

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Ashful

Ashful

Minister of Fire
Mar 7, 2012
19,983
Philadelphia
Picking up an OT conversation from another thread we de-railed:

jetsam said:
Yeah, let's get back to chickens. I mean, snow removal.

It's finally warming up into the high 20s here and we're getting up to a foot of snow tomorrow, followed by a windy day wirh 50mph gusts! That means TWO days where I get to play with my toys! (I also may well get to try the generator; I have a high risk power line.)

And speaking of chickens, we have more single-digit highs coming up after the snow. The wife has been researching cold weather chicken maintenance again. I got sent out to seal up any low-lying cracks in their coop, but the gable vents are staying wide open and they don't get a heater. Apparently if you seal up their coop, the water from their own respiration gives them frostbite.
Click to expand...

Ashful said:
It was -1F this morning, when I took water out to them. Same instructions as the last few days, “drink quick, while it’s liquid!”
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jetsam said:
Idea: keep a brick or large rock on your stove at all times. Whenever you go out to do a chicken thing, throw the hot brick in the water and throw the cold brick on the stove.

Insulate the bucket and I bet one hot brick will go all day!
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That's a great idea! I've been using these, hanging them from a chain:

upload_2018-1-3_21-44-3.jpeg

I like them, because they're really durable (they've never cracked, despite freezing SOLID every day), they stay clean (chickens can't roost on them and poop in the water), and they're real easy to clean and fill. Unfortunately, I don't think I could safely heat in one of them by any means (electric heater, heating pad, or brick), without some likelihood of melting them.

I see they make similar waterers in galvanized, which would be safer for heating (esp. with a hot brick)... but talk about heat loss!

images?q=tbn:ANd9GcSgBv0xjtEnao_gDVqavQUaCWN9zj8lgb5i50u5z_mMcB6CmoB6.jpg

My current solution is to fill the plastic waterer with hot water, and place it behind one of these plastic basement window guards:

d88ce74261bdacebd365f77e9354ac8b--window-well-basement-windows.jpg

Between the solar gain of the clear plastic, and it's windshield effect, the water stays liquid in most "normal" winter weather... at least on sunny days.

If anyone has a better solution, I'm all ears. However, I think it will mean ditching my current waterers, for something less susceptible to melting when a hot brick is placed in it.
 
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I use a 5 gallon bucket with little watering nipples drilled into it. I put the nipples near the bottom of the bucket, and I bring them up to chicken height by setting the bucket on a little oak round. It lives inside the coop in the winter, outside in the summer.

You could do something similar, but insulate the bucket and give it the old hot brick every so often. If you're worried about melting the bucket, leave a second brick in the bottom full time, so the hot brick lands on that.


If you really want to get crazy, you could do something like a passive solar air heater that blows the air on the bucket, or solar panels and a 12v immersion heater, but I think at that point it's simpler and cheaper to pull a power line out there. :p
 
I’ve avoided putting a waterer in the coop, but that’s probably the next step. On sunny days, it is 25F warmer in the coop than it is out in the run. I painted it a dark color for good solar heating in winter, and placed it under a grove of walnut trees to keep sun off it in the summer.
 
Ashful said:
I’ve avoided putting a waterer in the coop, but that’s probably the next step. On sunny days, it is 25F warmer in the coop than it is out in the run. I painted it a dark color for good solar heating in winter, and placed it under a grove of walnut trees to keep sun off it in the summer.
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My watering setup is a $3 5 gallon bucket with a couple chicken watering nipples on it. Be sure to get the right kind; they come in horizontal and vertical flavors. I use horizontal. I don't see the one I bought, but this one looks similar.

My wife says there was no training involved because the nipples are small and look different from the bucket, and that pretty much automatically earns you a peck from any passing chicken. ;)

You could probably wrap most of the bucket in a fiberglass blanket or tape, and not need your hot brick unless it was in the single digits.
 
Disappointing thread . . . based on the thread title I expected to read a thread comparing chicken nuggets. :)
 
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Spent last night moving snow, and this morning picking up broken glass from where the township snowplow took out my 96 gallon recycling can, so I never got around to moving the waterer into the coop. Will be a project for Saturday, now.

I have been watching coop temps when I’m home on weekends, and they see a nice 25F rise in the coop, if it is sunny out. That’s pretty good solar gain for siding, given there’s a 2 square foot hole cut in the roof for ventilation.
 
Ashful said:
Spent last night moving snow, and this morning picking up broken glass from where the township snowplow took out my 96 gallon recycling can, so I never got around to moving the waterer into the coop. Will be a project for Saturday, now.

I have been watching coop temps when I’m home on weekends, and they see a nice 25F rise in the coop, if it is sunny out. That’s pretty good solar gain for siding, given there’s a 2 square foot hole cut in the roof for ventilation.
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Mine sees about 10 degrees. My wife was worried about ventilation, so it has large gable vents on opposite sides, and "airtight joints" was not a design goal.

I asked her if I could block off one of the gable vents, and said they'd get frostbite if I did because they respire a lot of water into the air.

I did put plastic around 3 sides of the under-coop space (which they spend a lot of time in, in the summer) to stop cold air from blowing through that space and chilling the floor. (The floor is already 10 degrees; it doesn't need a lot of wind chill.)

At this moment the coop has lost direct sunloght, and is 5° above ambient.
 
I think the usual advice is to provide lots of ventilation (minimum 0.5 sq.ft. per chicken) in the coop, in such a way as to try to avoid direct draft on the chickens, where they roost. Yes, interior humidity is always a battle, your wife has the right idea, there.

My run is next to the coop, rather than under it. My coop has a few inches crawl space under it, and I never thought about it before, but I probably should have glued some foam board under the coop as a moisture barrier and insulation. I may do that, this summer, now that you’ve given me the idea.

I thought about putting up Lexan or acrylic panels on the run, but then I figured... they can just go in the coop when they get cold!

758515a62cb6b558d8dc48ff483d91bb.jpg
 
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Guys check out www.backyardchickens.com.. all kind of info and advice and pics on there. Definitely they need ventilation ABOVE THEIR HEADS. no direct draft. Some coops are open air. ideas from I believe the 1930s. just the front open and somehow the air travels up and out the top vents...there Is a whole article on VENTILATION there. WE used those plug in heated pet bowls. Hubby said it can be run on a mine Battery using DC current from a convertor. course got to unplug it when above freezing temperatures. a HF panel set would keep I charged if enough winter sun. And the bowl needs to be out of direct winds. Like in an upside tote with an opening cut out etc. if left outside. Course lease not use sty roam etc. The little buggers will eat it and sneak back like addicts if they spot sty foam etc.
Some DA on FaRM SHOW MAGAZINE there gave his chickens those Styrofoam cartons to eat. I was so PO and still am.... But I can't find the article now. even though I am a subscriber. or paling paint....RAH
thanks y'all
 
Ashful said:
My run is next to the coop, rather than under it. My coop has a few inches crawl space under it, and I never thought about it before, but I probably should have glued some foam board under the coop as a moisture barrier and insulation. I may do that, this summer, now that you’ve given me the idea.
Click to expand...

Ours made it through the sub-zero days okay, though she kept them cooped up and they didn't like it.

You could also brick off that open-air section under your coop, lay wire around it so it can't be dug under, and open up an entrance from inside the run.

I have an ~11" crawlspace under my coop, and the chickens spend half the day there in the summer. Dunno why they like it so much, but they do.

Edit: Just looked, and I guess they like it in snowy weather too!

Image953312702.jpg
 
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My chickens love their crawl space as well. As for keeping the water from freezing, the easiest and cheapest I've found so far is warming mats for starting your seedlings in the greenhouse in the spring. They're about $18 at HD and $12 on Amazon. The small ones(10"x20") I just fold in half and place under the waterer, and if it's really cold, I'll wrap one around the waterer. They're only 17 watts so you can use them on a plastic or metal waterer. My wife has a 48"x20" that I wrap around a 5 gallon waterer, when she doesn't have seedlings on it.

P_20180119_153819.jpg

P_20180119_153654.jpg

Four footer wrapped around a 5 gallon waterer...
 
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...overheard in the chicken yard, "this will be a great place to spend the winter"...
P_20171213_120753.jpg


...then winter came.

P_20171227_142029.jpg
 
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I have a 24' x 12' outdoor run outside the coop. The first 8' is roofed and then 16' is unroofed.

When it snowed, even after a couple days, you could go out there and find them confined to the 8x12 section with no snow on the ground. Not one set of tracks where a bold chicken tried to walk on the snow.

I went out one day and scattered some corn, which they will do nearly anything for. Some got scattered on the first 6" of the snow, where they could stand out of the snow and still reach it.

The next day, that little bit of corn was still sitting there in plain view.

They do NOT like the white stuff!
 
I think I will have to switch to a nipple system. But, that heater is 110V, and I have no AC in the coop.

The nipple system would allow me to insulate a bucket with adhesive backed insulation (think pipe insulation), and fill it with warm water, tho. That'd get them thru a cold day, well enough.
 
Ashful said:
I think I will have to switch to a nipple system. But, that heater is 110V, and I have no AC in the coop.

The nipple system would allow me to insulate a bucket with adhesive backed insulation (think pipe insulation), and fill it with warm water, tho. That'd get them thru a cold day, well enough.
Click to expand...

If you ran AC out to the coop, it'd be a perfect chance to run ethernet out to the coop for your many chickencams! ;)
 
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That insulated bucket idea might work. I usually don't plug my heater into unless it gets down into the mid 20's. I use a long extension cord and haven't had a problem. I think it is because it only draws 250w max. When the heater is unplugged and ice forms it floats to the top of the bucket leaving the nipples free. However, you are in a much colder climate that I am. You might consider putting nipples on a water cooler (already insulated) if you can not use electricity. This would take a bit more craftsmanship to work.
 
Yeah, I have no trouble when it’s in the 20’s. It was those three weeks where we were hovering -10F to +20F, that really screwed me up. All the chickens went off laying during that cold spell, and I haven’t had an egg since.
 
Huh, our egg supply slowed down a little but is right back to 5-6 a day now. They're currently wandering between the overhang and being underneath the coop as it's raining.

Image785911235.jpg
 
Ashful said:
Yeah, I have no trouble when it’s in the 20’s. It was those three weeks where we were hovering -10F to +20F, that really screwed me up. All the chickens went off laying during that cold spell, and I haven’t had an egg since.
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Eggs get expensive this time of year. The middle of December, 23 birds ate a $27 bag of feed over 9 days - we got 27 eggs!
 
Three of my chickens molted over the fall, and each stopped laying then. The fourth was still giving us about 4 eggs per week, until we got into the second week of sub-zero nights and 15F days, and then she stopped. Now she is molting. I haven’t had a single egg out of the flock since early January.
 
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