Free Ways to Heat Your Chicken Coop

There are many ways to keep your chickens warm enough during the winter months which is very important to protect your birds from frostbite, especially if you live in an area that gets below freezing. Make sure your coop is draft free, is large enough and has proper ventilation. Here are a few ways you can protect your chickens from the cold without running a heat lamp. There is still the initial cost of materials but no monthly electric bill for heaters and heat lamps.

Put heavy plastic around coop and runs
Use wood chip compost bedding
Use heated water dishes
Use hose heaters on hoses going to water dishes

Compost Bedding in a Greenhouse Will keep your Chickens Warm Without Using Electricity

Greenhouse Chicken Coop with Composting Floor Heat. Swedish Homestead. 2016

In the following video Swedish Homestead uses the Joe Salatin method of using a compost in a greenhouse to generate heat and ways to keep the hens from pecking one another. "During the winter time our chickens enjoy a spacious greenhouse as their home. But how do the hens withstand the rough Scandinavian winter in this non-insulated structure? The hens walk on a deep bedding made up out of wood chips, saw dust and wood shavings. The bedding is over 30cm deep. The heritage breed chickens will walk on it all winter and mix their manure into the deep bedding as they scratch in it for insects and grains that we through on the ground. This aerates the bedding and start a composting process which produces heat. Through this process the whole bedding becomes a source of heat for the birds" (Swedish Homestead). See video below.

Featured Video: Floor Heating For My Chickens

"The hens walk on a deep bedding made up out of wood chips, saw dust and wood shavings. The bedding is over 30cm deep. The heritage breed chickens will walk on it all winter and mix their manure into the deep bedding as they scratch in it for insects and grains that we through on the ground. This aerates the bedding and start a composting process which produces heat. Through this process the whole bedding becomes a source of heat for the birds". Swedish Homestead
Published on Nov 12, 2016