Heat Lamps in the Chicken Coup in Winter

Needed or no?

I’m getting mixed information from my local chicken peeps. Some say you need to heat the chicken coup in winter, some say not. Until now, I have not been heating mine. My wife, being the kind caring person she is, feels they need heat and is quite upset at what I’m ‘doing to the chickens.’

Last night my buddy who has a couple dozen birds went out to check on his in the night. It was -22C. None of his birds were under the heat lamps. He has no door on his shed, so it was the same temp inside as out. Assuming his birds are smart enough to find the heat if needed, at least down to minus 22, it would seem chickens don’t need supplementary heat. We will continue to monitor them as we get into the -40’s this winter.

He did have an interesting point about them needing a certain amount of light to keep producing. Mine are still laying 15 eggs a day (from 15 birds,) so they seem to be getting enough light, but we are still almost a month away from the Winter Solstice. I’ll need to observe and monitor their production as the amount of daylight drops.

The main change I’ve noticed is that they are eating a LOT more feed. This will partly be due to not getting as much scrounged food from the yard, but also I suspect their metabolism ramps up as they generate their own heat. I know larger animals such as cows do the same in winter … eat a lot more as they burn the feed to keep warm.

Will continue to experiment and learn from our 1st winter with chickens. Any advice or input would be appreciated!