How to Keep Chickens Warm in Winter Weather

Wondering how to keep chickens warm in winter weather? Don’t worry, it’s not as difficult as it may seem. With a little bit of preparation and some simple steps, you can ensure that your feathered friends stay cozy and comfortable throughout the winter season.

Chicken keepers are often concerned about them staying warm in the colder months, they’re actually very hardy birds. Their feathers provide them with an incredibly efficient down jacket to keep them warm even on the coldest of days.

While backyard chickens may be reluctant to hop out in the snow and not be huge fans of the cold temperatures, that doesn’t mean they can’t handle it. In fact, they will easily survive even when the temperatures dip into the teens, especially with a nice, dry, winterized coop.

While they can easily survive, there are a few things to help keep your chickens happy, healthy, and warm all winter long. Let’s take a look at some of the tips and tricks to make sure they stay cozy all season!

What temp is too cold for chickens?

How cold is too cold varies by age, breed, and condition. While some sources state that you may need supplemental heat below freezing, I’ve found that this isn’t necessary, at all and is a dangerous piece of advice.

If you have young chickens, molting chickens, young chickens, or a breed of chicken that isn’t cold hardy, that story may be different. Some chickens, in certain situations, may need additional heat. But this is an exception to the rule.

That said, I will never recommend using heat lamps or another heat source in a chicken coop. Not only is it a fire hazard, but if you lose power, you could lose your chickens because they can’t acclimate to the sudden change in temperature.

Tips for Keeping Chickens from Freezing in the Winter

Having a properly winterized chicken coop, reducing moisture, and watching for frostbite in your chickens are key to keeping your chickens warm in the cold winter months. These tips will help you keep your flock of chickens happy and healthy.

01 Prevent Drafts

A lot of coops are drafty, especially after they’ve been around a few years. Those cold drafts from the bitter wind can increase heat loss in your flock.

You can patch the holes with plywood, which is one of the best ways to get rid of drafts. However, even using a tarp, Tyvek, clear plastic sheeting, or even some feed bags in a pinch to close up the gaps in your coop will go a long way to keeping that cold air off of your birds.

While you want to keep it draft-free, don’t cover up all of their ventilation! They need that, which we will talk about in a minute. However, that ventilation should be up toward the roof where it won’t be directly blowing on the birds.

02 Keep The Coop Well Ventilated

Good ventilation is essential to keeping your chickens comfortable! Not only is proper ventilation important in the chicken coop to reduce ammonia build-up, but it also helps reduce moisture. Moisture is the single largest contributing factor to frostbite.

Not only does it create moisture, but that ammonia buildup decreases air quality and makes your flock more susceptible to respiratory problems and infections. Neither of these are things we want.

So, make sure your coop has some screened vents above where the chickens roost. This will help maintain low humidity and keep the ammonia from the droppings from building up.

03 Give them a Roost

Unlike ducks, chickens don’t like to sleep on the floor, and it isn’t really the best place for them, especially during the winter. The floor is cold and the heat rises! Not only this, but adult chickens are warm creatures, with a body temperature registering at a balmy 105-109°F.

They will take all that generated body heat, fluff out their feathers, and stand close together to keep themselves and their flock mates warm, naturally.

Making sure they have plenty of space to roost and stay together that is at least a couple of feet off of the floor of the coop will help the entire flock stay warm and happy.

I recommend using wide boards such as 2X4s for roosting “bars” as opposed to rounded bars where they have to “wrap” their toes around to stay in place. Having their feet flat on the roost will help protect their digits from frostbite when it gets really cold.

04 Provide Adequate Bedding

Some people swear by the “deep litter” method and I’m sure it works really well for a lot of folks. You can absolutely use it and keep the coop warm for your chickens, as long as it is properly managed.

The problem with using deep litter is if it isn’t properly managed, you could very well wind up increasing humidity levels inside the coop. So, if you use this method, you have to stay on top of it.

Regardless, keeping a thick layer of wood shavings, hemp bedding, or straw (though straw seems to hold a lot of extra moisture) will help keep the coop warm.

05 Insulate the Coop

In addition to bedding, you can also add a little extra insulation inside or outside of the chicken house by stacking straw bales against the walls.

If your coop is particularly small and short, you can put a few bales of straw under and around the exterior. If it’s large, just stack some up inside. This will just help insulate the coop to keep the heat your flock naturally generates inside a little better while keeping the cold outside.

06 Give them a Sunroom

Chickens need some protected outdoor space with fresh air and sunlight. In fact, without adding supplemental light bulbs to the coop, chickens won’t lay eggs as they require about 14 hours of sunlight to produce a single egg.

So, winterize the chicken run or something similar to give them some protected outdoor space. Put some clear plastic over the fencing and it will warm up like a miniature greenhouse or sunroom, even on the coldest of days, plus be blocked from the wind, snow, and rain (if you add a tarp or something similar to the roof).

This gives you a great spot to put the food and water as well as giving the chickens a spot to get out, stretch their wings, and enjoy the sunlight without all of the brutal elements of winter.

07 Keep Water and Feed Outside of the Coop

Water has no business in the coop, ever. It should be outdoors. Not only will putting water and feed inside your coop attract rodents, but the water will add moisture you do not want inside your coop to the coop.

Instead, make sure you have a covered, protected area just outside of your coop for the birds to get food and water. We keep our feed and water out year, round, thawing the water when necessary, and just leave it under a covered area. It’s dry, the snow doesn’t get in and it’s protected enough that the chickens will venture out to get food and water.

If it does get some snow on it, simply cover that area up with some straw, they’ll come right out, though we have plenty of free-range chickens that will actually cluck around the yard on the coldest, snowiest of days if the wind isn’t too terrible.

08 Coat Large Wattles and Combs

If you have a breed of chicken that has large combs and wattles, it’s a good idea to coat with with petroleum jelly, tallow balm, coconut oil, or another semi-solid on particularly cold days when the wind chill is really low to help ward off frostbite.

We’ve done this in the past, especially for our roosters that have large, single combs and wattles. I just pick him up in the morning, put a thin layer of deer tallow on that I’ve partially melted with my fingers and send him on his way.

09 Supplement Chicken Feed with Warm Treats to Keep them Warm

Chickens actually consume more feed in the winter than they do in the warmer months. The reason is not only because there is far less forage for them to enjoy, but also because it helps them stay warm through the process of digestion.

Despite this increased consumption, egg production drops in the cold months. That said, supplementing them with some extra, chicken-friendly treats can help them stay warm and full all winter.

Some great treats to feed your chickens to keep them warm in the winter are:

• Fodder, or other sprouted grains. These are really easy to keep growing for your flock with very little effort!
• Dried mealworms
• Black oil sunflower seeds
• Winter Squash
• Warm Oatmeal
• Warm Scrambled Eggs (yep, they love them, make sure they’re cooked and not yolky)
• Organic Cracked Corn or scratch grains

Give these treats to your chickens before roosting for the evening to help them stay warm through the cold night, or warm up some oatmeal or scramble some eggs in the morning to help them keep the chill off.

Just don’t let the supplementation get too out of hand, they’ll end up overweight and won’t get all the proper nutrients they need to thrive. Just remember, it’s a snack, and give it on the coldest of days.

10 Keep Their Water Thawed

This is a struggle for all of us and there are so many different methods and theories out there on the easiest ways to keep livestock water thawed in general.

For us, we’ve had the best luck with using black, rubber buckets in the winter to water our chickens as well as our ducks.

We originally used fount waterers for our flock and drug an extension cord out to stick a warmer/de-icer underneath it to keep the water liquid.

After a while, that became a pain, so we used a heated waterer and had okay results. But then after we had ducks in the winter, who needed to dip their bills all the way into the fresh water to clear their nostrils, we switched to buckets.

The black color helps the water stay liquid and the fact that they’re rubber makes it easier to break up ice. You can also stick a stock tank de-icer in them to keep the water warm and liquid on incredibly frigid days.

What to Check Out Next:

• How to Stay Warm for Winter Homestead Chores
• 15 Homesteading Skills to Learn This Winter
• How to Prevent Frozen Chicken Eggs