What Temperature Should a Chicken Coop Be in Winter?

What the sources say about coop temperature

The question assumes that there is a number. For adult birds the extension services mostly decline to give one.

So the search for an ideal chicken coop temperature in winter ends with one figure from one university, and that figure is a floor. The disagreement behind the table is laid out under do chickens need heat in the winter.

How to read the 35 °F

Three details belong to the number.

It is an indoor reading. The University of Minnesota Extension refers to the temperature inside the coop, at the height of the nest boxes or the lower roost. It is not the outdoor temperature and not the forecast low.

It is a threshold, not a target. The recommendation is to add heat when the reading falls below 35 °F. It does not say that a coop should be kept at 40, 50 or 60 °F.

It is one position. No other extension service names a threshold, and three advise against heating protected adult birds at all. Presenting 35 °F as the rule is as inaccurate as claiming that heat is never needed.

Why “room temperature” is the wrong goal

No source read for this site recommends a warm coop. Ohio State University Extension asks keepers who use space heaters, radiant heating or heat lamps to avoid excess heat, carbon dioxide buildup and fire hazards, and it notes that cold-tolerant, acclimated breeds in a dry, well-ventilated coop usually need no supplemental heat.

There is also a practical limit. A coop heater is a low-wattage device, usually a flat radiant panel of 100 to 200 watts, that warms the birds next to it rather than the air of the coop. A coop with open vents under the roof, which every extension service asks for, cannot be held at a set air temperature by such a panel, and is not meant to be.

Many of the numbers online are brooder temperatures. Chicks are a different case: the University of Maryland Extension writes that young birds need a source of heat to survive and grow. Charts with high temperatures belong to that stage, not to a coop of feathered adults.

What to aim for instead

The extension services describe a state, not a reading.

• Dry. The University of Maryland Extension points out that damp air feels much colder than dry air and that moisture raises ammonia levels. Moisture together with cold is also what the University of Minnesota Extension names as the main cause of frostbite.
• Draft-free at the roost, ventilated above it. Vents near the roof let moist air out without blowing across the birds. The details are under chicken coop ventilation.
• Bedding. Maryland suggests three to four inches of pine shavings or straw as insulation on the floor.
• Birds that look comfortable. The University of Minnesota Extension describes the signs of cold stress: birds huddle, fluff their feathers and stand on one foot. What those signs mean is covered under how cold is too cold for chickens.

Insulation changes how fast a coop cools, not what it should read. That topic has its own page: insulated chicken coops.

Measuring it properly

A thermometer is still worth having, because it turns the forecast into a fact about your coop.

1. Hang it at roost height

   Inside the coop, level with the nest boxes or the lower roost, away from the pop door and not right next to a heater.

2. Read it early in the morning

   A reading taken while the flock is still on the roost shows what the night was like where the birds sit.

3. Look at the windows too

   Condensation or frost on the inside of the glass points to moisture. That calls for more ventilation up high, not for more heat.

4. Compare with the birds

   A reading above 35 °F with relaxed birds needs no action by any source. A reading below it is the point where Minnesota's recommendation and the other services part ways.

If you heat by thermostat

A thermostat does not set the coop temperature either. Plug-in thermostat outlets switch at fixed temperatures and read the air where they are plugged in. How that relates to the roost is explained under chicken coop heaters with a thermostat and on the Thermo Cube page. What the running hours add up to is the subject of a neighboring question: how much it costs to run a chicken coop heater. Whether birds feel the cold in the first place is answered under do chickens get cold.