I am glad I built a heated roost for my chickens. We have had some temperatures in the high twenties and it is good to know that my chickens aren't stressed trying to keep warm at night. They appear very chipper in the cold mornings as if the cold doesn't bother them at all.
My heated roost is the length of my giant chicken hutch. The roost is a12 foot long 2x4. I wrapped a twenty three foot reptile heating cable around the 2x4, spacing between wires was about three and a half inches. I secured this into place and covered with a strip of space blanket to cover the 2x4, stapled this on, taking care not to puncture the heating cable and then covered with an inexpensive strip of indoor outdoor carpet, and stapled this on also. My little chickens can rest upon this roost and do- all lined up in a row.
I also have a ceramic heat source for the pigeon waterer I use inside the hutch, and that works also - no freezing.
If the temperature goes into the low twenties or lower, I have a 150 watt heat emitter hanging inside the hutch to add a little more heat.
You have to be careful with those heat lamps, emitters or heaters. I read that several fires had been started in urban coops because of heat lamps.
The reason I like heat emitters is that they don't emit light, and that makes things more natural. They are also supposed to be safer. I was using one inside a metal tub of chicks, suspended on a bar inside the tub. I had been using it for months. The emitter was screwed into a porcelain socket with metal dome. I use wood shavings in the tub as bedding for the chicks. One day I opened the door to the shop where I keep my chicks and the place was full of smoke, it was so thick I could hardly see. Uh Oh! I thought, where is this coming from? when I went over to open a window I saw it was boiling out one of the tubs. I quickly disconnected it, opened all the rest of the windows and door including all the overhead doors to the garage. It took awhile for things to air out. I found that the porcelain part had fallen out of the metal dome and onto the shavings. The metal dome was still suspended in place. The emitter in the porcelain socket came to rest on the shavings. The shavings were charcoal black and some were glowing.
The good news is that the chicks were fine - I don't see how - but they were and are. If I had not been home and gone out to the shop when I did, I think it would have been another story.
