Heat lamps
 

We are expecting some crazy cold nights for what we are use to. They are saying -15 without windchill. Our chickens are free range and get closed up at night so they have been used to the winter so far. They are about 3 months old. Should i give them a heat lamp? They have a dry and mostly draft free shelter. Thanks

I am no expert, but I wouldn't heat lamp them if they are feathered and have been out there used to it so far. If your coop is dry and draft free like you say, they will huddle up and be fine.
One thing, more so for next year, unless you already did it, :)... their roost perches... use a 1x4 laid on its side, with the bigger flat side as the perch, that way they can lay down on their feet to keep them warm in the really cold temps.
To me heat lamps just invite issues- fire possibility, plus the birds won't properly get used to winter. :)
Good luck with the birdies! :)

Keep them dry and the wind off them. They will be fine. I give a little corn for their internal furnance. They will be fine.

I forgot the corn! :)
I spoil mine also, and give them warm oatmeal when it is a really chilly morning. :)

I would give them extra straw fluffed up on the floor to huddle in during the cold and the corn suggested. Some warm water would be appreciated too.

Heat lamps in a building with hay is looking for trouble - serious trouble.

As noted, with sufficient hay/straw, and no drafts, they will be as fine as frog's hair. You may get a little frostbite on a cock's comb, but they'll be dandy.

it depends on your management of the heat lamp, chained well to a stable structure and hay or straw kept away from them. ideal with systems that use shavings or peat to bed with. warm food and water go a long way to keeping the birds body temp at a pleasant temp for them.

if they do not like the heat, they will not stay under the lamp for long! minus 35 here and believe me, the birds love the spa!

If they do get too cold and get frostbite on their combs/feet, just rub some Vaseline on it.

We put a normal bulb (incandescent) in with our hens when the temps dropped to zero for a week which is way cold for us. Set it to come on at 4 am. Warm oatmeal in the morning which they loved! That added a bit of warmth and the nice benefit of helping with egg production.

We use a heat lamp, but mainly to keep their water from freezing. We use pine shavings, so not too worried about combustion.

You know, they raise free range chickens in Alaska. They just keep them out of the draft. They say a chicken that hasn't lost a claw to frostbite is a real blessing. Chickens are pretty tough hombres.

It was -15 overnight here last night. Our chickens live in a very large shed with a huge front door. We leave the door open, so it is basically a three sided structure. We didn't lose a single chicken, nor were there any signs of frostbite on any of them. We don't have an expensive heated waterer or anything, we just have a concrete block with a light socket and a bulb in it, attached to an extension cord (total cost $5). We sit their waterer on top of the concrete block and it makes it through most of the day. It always freezes overnight, but chickens don't drink at night anyway. We just swap it out with a different waterer in the morning while it thaws out in the garage. We've never given them a heat lamp. Chickens are really hearty animals, way more hearty than we are.

You might want to sprinkle Cayenne pepper of their food as well.
They don't have taste buds like us and it sure helps to keep those little furnaces going much better.

I sprinkling a bit on their hot meals in the mornings to get them thru the real cold days and a little more at nights.
I also serve them up extra BOSS every night with their scratch before bed time.

Delay with heating unless it get real bad. Then only for the coldest part of the early mornings for a couple hrs if you feel you really have to.
Once they get used to it and if the power goes out....you will have a real problems. :(

I shut down pop doors so they have to stay inside when it gets real nasty. Blocking off the bottom air flow is about the best you can do for them at nights for protection.
I also used deep litter of shavings.
We went thru minus 30 here, not sure what the wind chill factor was other then dang cold, but all were well.

Good luck!

Cayenne works as a wormer never found it much use keeping the birds warm though

Our birds do a lot better in the Winter when we add cayenne pepper to their feed. <shrug> We also add extra protein and fat to their Winter diet.

Every little bit helps!

we feed meat scraps, not poultry though !! makes up for all the bugs they are not harvesting! BOSS and a bit of fat but with the extreme cold we have been having (nothing like Minnesota's -70!) the birds are needing something extra!

expecting cold, cold weather here in Mississippi the next few days - so I'm hanging another light. Our chickens are not use to just extreme cold. I don't use heat lamps, just regular bulbs and will apply Vaseline to as many as possible. They're pretty tough, but this is unusually extreme cold approaching our area.

one other reason to provide heat is to stop the eggs from cracking!! found a half dozen "puppy"(cause that's whos getting them!) eggs today after the cold snap. am going to look at the pet mats for dogs to put in the nest box

I put heat lamps in with the chickens and the turkeys. It's a comfort to them, and they can get as close or as far as they please. It was -16 with 40mph winds this morning, and even for tough birds, that's harsh.

"Puppy" eggs! That's cute! I'll bake with them if I can use them soon, but otherwise, one of my dogs gets them.

Heat lamps
 

Has anyone been told to use a red light bulb in their lamps? My daughter is a first time chicken owner (I will be getting mine soon:banana:). She went to Tractor Supply to pick up feed and check on lamps. The salesman told her to use red light bulbs in the lamp because chickens are cannibalistic and if a chicken pecks another and draws blood the red light will not show the blood and the chickens will not attack it. She didn't buy any yet...

I had heard the exact same thing when I first got my chickens. It was also said to me that the red light waves aren't as annoying to them at night when they sleep. I did buy the bulb, but I don't remember which. And by the time my friend gave my my chickens he had brooded for me, they no longer needed light, so I haven't ever used one. I also don't heat them in any form in the winter. :)

Some breeds, and some individuals tend to be more cannibalistic than others. Red bulbs are readily available, and have been used to prevent cannibalism for many a year. I have found that the red bulbs also seem to interfere less with the chicks' sleep patterns, which is a very fine thing if a person has to brood chicks in the house.

Froze water in the big mettle founts is a pain in the but. Last year I used heat lamps the red bulbs, over the waters and even that didnt work with the -12, this year I got the heater bases on sale so I will try that with the heat lamp hung in a central location overer the roosts. I us a 60 watt to keep eggs coming in winter as well. Oh and I ought some of the flex hoses that I bring in and out untill the out side hose bib is frozen then I hook up to the kitchen sink, its a pain but I just cant carry the heavy buckets anymore. Last year I had over 50 guineas I was rasing for a tick study for a college, and that was a lot of water along with my own birds. this year its my own birds 30. But thats a good bit of water.

We only use red heat lamps with our chicks. Growth is good, and no picking.

Is she trying to keep chicks warm?

Depending on the ambient temperature and size of brooder, you might not need a 'heat' bulb...keeping chicks too warm is not a good idea.

I used regular incandescent 60 watt to heat chicks indoors, then got a 100 watt red reptile bulb(at amazon) on a dimmer switch(to adjust heat output) so they weren't lit up at night.

Yeah I tried the heated dog bowl for water here. we live in eastern WA. The bowl didn't do squat once it was actually cold. But that is most likely because I had the bowl outside, so it was exposed to snow and wind. I am fortunate in that I work from home, so I just changed over to going out every few hours for a small walk to check on animals as my work break. I just refill the chicken water then with new water as needed. I used hot water, even though several people have told me that hot actually freezes faster?
Oh, and I put their water in the smallest size of those black rubber feed pans, in the sunniest part of the chicken yard. That helped a lot.