lol awesome pic, yeah we went through that the other night, my wife was shocked the chickens made it through, I told her the wind was a issue for them not the cold, but she didn't believe me. Stay warm, right now we are dealing with 40 degrees and torrential rain, flooding and ice is a huge issue right now
3 Nov ’12
So I put the chickens back in their tractor and moved it into the garage when we dipped slightly into the negatives for a few days. Was this unnecessary? I built a pallet coop similar to yours, KVR, and insulated it with straw. There is no insulation under the roof or anything and there are vents on the sides where the roof meets the side walls. Im not sure how much wind will blow through, but the water gets frozen solid if we go into the mid 20s. Just curious if I could keep them out in the coop at such low temps.
just put plastic on the vents to block the wind, that is the real issue, what breed do you have again? We have rhode island reds and brhamas and they have thrived in the cold.
you want to know where mine are?
under my dad's cabin, they refused to go into the pallet coop. There is no insulation, no heat lamp, I just threw down some straw under my dads deck and put their food, a flock block and a water bowl for them. It has been well below freezing several stretches over the last couple weeks, when it is that cold, they just shelter under my dad, if it's above 10, they are just chilling in the straw, I change their water twice a day because it's frozen, but I've seen them eating snow as well.
you can put vaseline on their combs and such to help prevent frostbite, that is the major issue for them
I am really not looking forward to cleaning out under there in the spring, they will be moved whether they like it or not, or they will just go back in the large coop for some time out
3 Nov ’12
lol...after all that work they're under the deck!
OK, sounds good. I was planning on moving them back out this weekend, so I'll get it done. I have some plastic for the vents. In the spring, I'm planting some shrubs around the coop which should hide it a bit from the neighbor's view and also create a windbreak. Going with Seaberry, Goumi or Siberian pea shrub. (just not sure what's going where yet in the food forest, so the leftovers will surround the coop) THis way I can pick off some of the berries and toss them to the birds too...gotta stack those functions!
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