Winterizing my seabright bantams!!!?

Question

i recently purchased 15 seabright chicks to be delivered tomarrow. since my purchase ive discovered they are not cold hearty. i live in oklahoma where the winter temperatures can be extreme. other than building a coop in house, how can i keep them warm enough?

Answer 1

I live in Ohio, and I think our winters actually get worse than yours (two years ago we had -25 for a week at a time!)  But I know lots of people who keep seabrights and they do just fine.

They do need to be kept inside a barn or coop, but you don't necessarily have to have a heated building.  With 15 birds, they will huddle together for additional warmth when sleeping.  What I do for my bantams is hang a 250 watt brood lamp over their nest boxes and another over their waterer.  This keeps the sleeping area warm and the water from freezing.  I will also run an oscillating heat fan, but if you are using any type of heater, make sure it is BARN SAFE (has an automatic shut off if tipped or overheated) and away from where your animals may brush against it and singe feathers.

You can also put their nest boxes up on a pallet to keep it from losing heat through a concrete floor or through the ground.  We keep a heavy layer of pine shavings on the floor and extra straw or hay for nest bedding.  

Our birds free range but won't set foot in the snow.  Feather legged bantams tend to have snow collect on leg feathers and this can result in freezing and frostbite.  To keep them from getting bored, I make sure they get a daily treat of scratch grains or scrambled eggs scattered on the floor.  It gives them something to hunt for all day and gets some extra nutrition into them when they've been used to hunting bugs all summer long.

Our barn is poorly insulated and unheated (it's a 120-year old building original to the property here), and I've never lost a bird during the winter.  On the contrary, my little silkies actually hatch chicks during the winter if I don't keep taking their eggs away.  Big surprise when you go out to break ice in water buckets and have to stuff chicks into your coat pockets.  Laundry rooms can convert to brood pens when needed!

Answer 2

Hi there, we keep our chicken warm by having 2 heat lamps in there chicken house, the coop itself is also insulated so the heat doesn't escape, we do not have a concrete floor because it gets super cold, so we have layers first is dirt then straw and then 2 bags of sawdust, they keep nice and toasty. I dont let them outside if its too cold so good luck!!