How to you keep chickens warm in a bad cold spell? And don’t they attract rats and snakes?
A heat lamp (250 watt bulb) will keep a tight chicken house warm. And you are correct, chickens attract all kinds of predators. Everything wants to eat chicken.
For keeping chickens warm:
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“How to you keep chickens warm in a bad cold spell? And don’t they attract rats and snakes?”
I don’t know. I keep bees, not chickens. I thought about it some time ago, but concluded that they’re not worth the grief. I’ll trade honey for eggs if need be.
I gave away unneeded heat lamps to a friend who’s raising chickens (50 so far). This has been their first winter molt, and he while he laughs at his bare-arsed ‘girls,’ he’s also surprised at their choosing to go outside nekkid on even a bitterly cold day.
He moved the heatlamps, one to the egg shed to prevent freezing before sale, the other to the barrel serving as their drinking water shed. It’s a white plastic barrel with a large square entry hole for their access. At night, it’s like he’s operating a hen-sized redlight district.
But even during this lighter production season, he feeds them good, high quality food that warms them from the inside. So they roam outside the nice warm spot he’s provided for their repose.
Predators haven’t been a problem so far. He made sure to line the ground outside their fence with mesh too, to deter tunneling critters. Once he expands operations into meat fowl, he may get a Great Pyranese or some other flock protecting dog.