In this tenth Krewe of Coops virtual chicken coop tour, we take a trip to Maryland and Virginia to showcase six examples of coops built using The Garden Coop backyard chicken coop plans. Read More
Tag: Heat
Winter’s coming! Is your chicken coop ready for the cold weather?
Winter is on the way in the Northern Hemisphere. These 3 resources will help you get your coop and flock ready for the coming season:
- Chicken Keeping Buyer’s Guide – This is our selection of curated links to tools, materials, accessories, books, and art that make coop building and chicken keeping easier and more fun. Specific to cold weather, the guide points you to options for adding light to the coop and heat to your chickens’ waterer (and henhouse, if needed). Have ideas to add to the list? Please let me know.
- Winter Chicken Coop Care Series – This four-part series is our go-to reference for how to prepare your coop and flock for the winter. Please add any tips directly to the comments sections of those posts.
- All of our “winter”-themed posts – See everything we have that’s winter-related, including a many coop profiles from customers who’ve built our designs in some fairly cold and some truly extreme environments.
Happy wintering!
How to heat your chickens’ nipple waterer in the winter
Just a quick post to share what we did last winter to keep our chickens’ nipple waterer from freezing. We bought an immersible birdbath heater (see our Buyer’s Guide for more details). Because the element rests at the bottom of the bucket, near the nipples, the warmth not only kept the nipples from freezing, but also kept any drops that formed on the outside of the nipples from freezing. Read More
Make It Your Own: Dale’s Decked Out Oregon Chicken Coop
Dale sent us pictures of his amazing garden and chicken coop he built using The Garden Coop walk-in chicken coop plans. Among many other additions, he built the henhouse walls to the ground on three sides, attached attractive outboard nesting boxes, and added rectangular windows to the henhouse. The rest of the post is from Dale. . . Read More
Make It Your Own: Nate’s Winterized Wisconsin Garden Coop Walk-in Chicken Coop
With extremely cold weather dipping into the U.S. this winter, I thought I’d share some detailed notes I got from a customer in Galesville, Upper Wisconsin. He’s taken several steps to winterize his Garden Coop walk-in chicken coop and run and reports that his flock of seven has stayed active, healthy, and laying — even as the mercury dips to 20 below. Read on to see what he’s done. The rest of this post comes directly from Nate. . . Read More
Winter Chicken Coop Care, Part 4: Heating your chicken coop.
This is the last in a four-part series on getting your chickens and coop ready for the winter.
Once you’ve done everything else, you may find that you still want to provide extra warmth in your coop. We don’t heat the chicken coops in our yard, but many backyard chicken keepers in steady sub-freezing conditions have need for and success with artificial (electric) heat, through lamps, radiant heaters, and heated waterers.
Here are some tips I’ve gathered from customers and others who have used electric heat effectively (and be sure to read the comments section for more tips, cautions, and advice, particularly if you keep males as well as females): Read More