Battery operated heated water bowl for chickens

One of the biggest concerns of future chicken keepers, as well as novice chicken keepers from Florida to Alaska is how their birds will survive the winter. The short answer is that they’ll survive just fine! You don’t have to worry about heating the coop or feeding them hot cooked grains, both of which were done in the late 1800s in a failed attempt to get hens to lay eggs through the winter.

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• Water for chickens in winter
• Should you insulate or heat your chicken coop in winter?
• Do you need to have a light in your chicken coop in winter?
• What chicken breeds do best in cold weather?
• How to care for your other animals in winter

Water for chickens in winter

Your only concern is probably keeping fresh water in front of your chickens. There is an electric heater base that is available commercially, but if you don’t have electricity in your coop, you can simply have two water bowls and swap them out twice a day. Put out a fresh bowl of warm water in the morning and take the frozen bowl in the house to thaw.

In the late afternoon, dump the melted ice out of that bowl and take it outside with fresh, warm water to replace the one that is probably frozen by now. You can use dog bowls that have wide bases so that they won’t tip over if the hens decide to sit on the edge.

You don’t need to spend extra money on so-called “passive solar” water bowls. That just means that if the bowl sits in the sun, it won’t freeze. There is no “technology” involved in these bowls, regardless of what the manufacturer says.

And battery operated heaters are an environmentalist’s nightmare. It makes no sense whatsoever to use eight — yes, eight — D batteries to keep a bowl of water from freezing overnight. The batteries are dead in less than eight hours, eating up one battery per hour for no reason.

If you give your hens fresh warm water in the afternoon, they’ll be fine until morning because they don’t actually drink overnight. Their night vision is terrible, so they don’t move around.

And if they have access to snow, they’ll eat that, which contributes to their water intake. Chickens actually drink very little in the winter anyway.

Should you insulate or heat your chicken coop in winter?

As for insulating or heating your coop, don’t do it. Chickens survived just fine for centuries living in makeshift coops made from barrels or whatever scrap wood was laying around the farm.

It wasn’t until the 1870s that commercial chicken keeping took root, and people began putting chickens in insulated, heated houses, thinking it would make them lay eggs through the winter. By the time they realized their mistake, confinement chicken production was considered the standard.

People also saw a huge increase in poultry diseases during this time, and by the early 20th century, some people were advocating a return to letting chickens go outside. Research showed that the above chicken house, which had no wall on the south side, made for healthier chickens, but most poultry producers would not be swayed. The debate raged on for about 30 years, and we all know who won. Today confinement chicken operations are the norm.

Our first chicken house — notice the open windows for fresh air? Don’t open windows on opposite sides, however, because you don’t want the wind blowing through the coop.

I’m not saying you need to have a wide-open coop because that creates the whole question of what to do about predators. My point is simply that your chickens need fresh air more than a heated coop. If you have an insulated coop, you will create problems.

Condensation causes frozen combs, and ammonia buildup causes respiratory problems. Unfortunately, human noses are not sensitive enough to smell ammonia before it can start to damage chickens’ lungs. It’s not going to hurt you because you’re only in there for a few minutes. The chickens are spending most of their time in there, plus their noses are less than a foot from the ground most of the time.

Do you need to have a light in your chicken coop in winter?

No, you don’t need a light for the heat or the light. Some people choose to put a light in their coop to force their hens to lay through the darker days of winter. Egg production slows down as days get shorter in the fall. For hens older than a year old, egg production usually shuts down completely at some point in winter.

In Illinois, we see very few eggs between late November and the end of February. And we totally fine with that. If Mother Nature thinks the girls need a holiday, who am I to argue? 

Eggs can easily last three months in the refrigerator, and we simply don’t do things like omelets for breakfast during those months. When March rolls around and the ladies are laying like crazy, we will get more than our fill of egg-based breakfasts, lunches, and dinner! 

What chicken breeds do best in cold weather?

Some people think you have to have certain breeds to do well in harsh winter weather, but back when our daughters were home, they’d get four different breeds every year for showing, including some Mediterranean breeds and bantams. We had at least a dozen different breeds through the years, including Orpingtons, Wyandottes, Faverolles, Hamburgs, Plymouth Rock, Javas, Delawares, New Hampshires, Japanese bantams, Cochin bantams, Sebright bantams, and more.

We’ve never had Naked Necks, but we do have turkeys, which don’t have feathers on their necks, and they’ve done fine. If I had a chicken that was going through an untimely molt and had no feathers on her back, I’d probably put her somewhere a little warmer when temperatures dipped too far below freezing. Thankfully most chickens have lots of feathers to keep them warm through the winter.

Since starting to keep chickens in 2002, we’ve had zero respiratory problems and only a frozen comb every couple years on a rooster or two. And we are in Illinois where below zero temperatures are common. Our chickens even survived when the temperature dipped to -25 degrees Fahrenheit (yes, 25 degrees below zero). So, to show some love to your chickens, rather than giving them a heater in their coop, just open a window so the ammonia and humidity can escape.

You may also be interested in reading 6 Things Chickens Don’t Need in Winter and 9 Reasons Your Hens Are Not Laying. (Hint: one reason is because the days are too short in winter.)

How to care for your other animals in winter

• Goats in Winter
• Kidding in Winter
• Pigs in winter weather
• Cold Ducks: Keeping ducks in winter weather

Post updated November 16, 2021

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