Winter is coming

Wish I had some sage advice to give, but I just wanted to say I approve of your puns. Valar dohenris!

And I'm a noob with chickens.

We all were at some point. Some of us, myself included, still are.

So far, we have a fairly reliable outside temp above 50 up until January, through February, where the temps here in the uplands can get freezing or below.

I sincerely hope that's Fahrenheit. Until it starts freezing you don't have to worry about it. Make sure that the bird, and feed, can stay dry and you're golden. We have bird flu coming in from the south during winter in Denmark, and thus have to cover our runs with at least some wires or netting. If you get that in your area that should be next on the list.

Once it starts freezing then keeping the water thawed for the bird is important. Birds can't drink solid water apparently 🫤

We have an indoor enclosure for our girl (soon to be girls, dammit),

Hah! Chicken maths. Also good, because chickens are a flock animal and will keep each other warm on the roost.

So, I'm hoping to get some advice for what kind of temp ranges I should be keeping her inside, or otherwise with more than just the coop's protection from the elements.

We have an average temp in the winter of about 3°C (37°F) and frost during the day for maybe 2 weeks at a time, with night time temps dipping to -15°C (5°F) at the most extreme. And our birds are fine in the coop. We've had heating lamps for the ducks, but I don't think that it has made much of a difference, so we'll try to see how it goes without it. The chickens have always been without heating in the coop.

Keeping the water from freezing has always been the most pressing issue. If anybody got something on that I'd be happy to hear about it.

The only time we'll bring a chicken indoors is when it's ill. Then it'll live in our guest bathroom and be observed. Having a companion while on the throne is something else.

Thanks in advance, valar morgallus

I hope I could give you some peace of mind, dif-tor heh smusma.

I live in the part of Australia that doesn't get snow reliably every year. We put a good tight wooden roosting box with no floor a metre above the ground in the main coop and they roost in there and keep each other warm. I don't think it has ever got much below -5, and other than giving them hot wet mash in the mornings, they don't need any other help surviving the cold here.

Growing up we always used heat lamps in our coops but I did some googling and came across this article, they seem to know what they are talking about but idk, I am not a professional in any way.

https://the-chicken-chick.com/whether-to-heat-chicken-coop-in-cold/#:~:text=Not only do they have,a heat lamp with chickens!