Do you ever wonder that chickens also need heat in winter? Or are confused should you heat the chicken coop or not? Then, this article might help you to reduce your confusion and will guide you about the same. In this article, we are going to talk about the solar chicken coop heater.

Without any further delay, let’s get into the topic.

Continue reading this blog till the end to get a more precise idea about the solar chicken coop heater.

What is a Solar Chicken Coop Heater?

You might have heard many people saying that you don’t need a chicken coop as chicken produce their body heat, and sometimes this chicken coop can be harmful.

But this is not the truth!

Before getting into more detail about this topic, let’s first understand a chicken coop.

The chicken coop is a small hen house meant for a female chicken to keep them safe. Generally, it is an indoor area where chickens eat or sleep and can make a nest. It is an outdoor area; then, it is properly fenced.

Why do you need a Solar Chicken Coop?
Now, comes the crucial question that is why you need a solar chicken coop heater. Here, are the following benefits of having a solar chicken coop heater:

A sudden drop in temperature for icy conditions can reduce the production of eggs. That is the reason you should have a chicken cook Heater to make them survive in those conditions.

Chicken cannot survive without drinking water for an entire day; during winters, the water freezes, and as a result, your bird goes without water. Hot photo, so I hate you, will help you keep the temperature inside it warm and protected. It will help your chicken eat and drink water on time.

During the daytime, if the temperature drops, then use the chicken coop heater. It will help you to reduce health issues and the death of birds. It is essential to keep your chicken warm during winters.

Why choose Solar Chicken Coop Heater over Electronic Heater?
Here are a few reasons why you should avoid electronic heater within your chicken coop:

If you provider chicken regular, then I won’t survive outside conditions full stop; if Power goes off Sunday, you will end up in a lot of trouble.
Solar Chicken Coop Heater can survive cold weather conditions, but providing them a little heat is always a good idea, but this can turn harmful in electronic devices.

An electronic heater can also result in fire dangers and cause a significant threat to the life of your chicken.
Now comes the next question: what to do in such a condition; then, we are here to help you out. We will list some of the ways to make a solar chicken coop heater to make your chicken feel comfortable in icy conditions.

Greenhouse type solar chicken coop heater

For this, you can design a Mini Run greenhouse chamber. You can build this by taking a strong frame jutted from the main coop keeping it at a height facing the sun. Next, you need is a hardware cloth to wrap the top and front parts. You can provide a separate door for your chickens to poop. Further, you can fix a board in the frame so that your chickens have to walk around to enter the coop.

This set-up can also help protect your chickens during the rain. To achieve this, you have to cover the coop with an extended plastic cover in such a way that as soon as the raindrops, it flows towards the wooden wedge keeping the chickens safe. You can leave the poop door open for their easy exit. The added factor is that the air entering the coop through the plastic cover lifts the moisture and exits the coop through the small air openings up there in the roof.

Craig’s secret 16 chicken coop heater

This method does not require expensive materials or solar panels but just a few budget materials like empty metal canisters, glass bottles. The first step is to place your empty liquid or water bottles in a well-insulated box. Using liquid bottles can result in trapping an efficient amount of heat when kept the box in the sun and keeping it insulated for a more extended period.

You can use sheets of R-65 foam insulation with mylar backing to build up the insulation box. It is advisable to calculate the correct dimensions for the set-up to avoid any mistakes. If you want the set-up to be more efficient, you must build the box in a long wedge shape to trap most of the box’s heat. When you are finished, you can place this set-up in the coop.

Solar Chicken Coop Heaters for Pennies

Heat loss is the biggest drawback for any solar setup. Thus, in order to prevent this one needs to install more reflectors to maintain the temperature inside the coop. This will ensure less heat loss from the container during nights.

For this, we need to build solar reflectors. In order to make them we can either use small mirrors or can also use aluminium foil fixed to cardboard. The more insulation, the less is the heat loss.

Tips

There are a few tips that one must follow while building up solar chicken coop heaters

Use dark containers.
Never fill up your glass containers completely. It is advisable to leave at least half of it.
Try to use leak-proof containers in order to prevent the damage.

Solar chicken coop heater is a perfect device for your chicken buddies. They also require that comfort and warmth in winter, but you must understand that their body temperature in human body temperature is way different.

We also shared with you easy methods to better solar chicken coop heater. Hope this article might help you out.