If money is tight you can cover the open (wire) areas with heavy plastic but be sure to have a low and high vent (about 3x12") to allow air flow and to expel excess heat during the day (greenhouse effect). Be sure to keep the lower vent from being blocked by snow. I've always enclosed the smaller runs with double layer of plastic and inflated them with a greenhouse inflation fan. This keeps the wind noise down and adds strength to the plastic if some predator tries to go through it (hard for them to get a hold of the plastic). Use a 60 to 100W light bulb in the coop, be sure to use a porcelain fixture and if you can put it on a thermostat that will turn it on only if it gets below 34F and turn off at 38F that will prevent overheating. Increase carbs in their diet with Wheat/Oats/rye or corn. This will give them extra fat reserves to help them through the colder spells. Keep and eye on their weight so they don't get too fat. Any change in diet should be a gradual process.

Thirsty_Dirt - Welcome to my world !!! Zone 3 - that is. Light bulbs (many) will work in the early spring when the plants are small - with a frost blanket over a protection cage so it doesn't touch the plants or the light bulbs - but that isn't practical this time of year! We have found the least expensive method is to run a couple of ceiling fans 24/7 to keep the warm air down in the GH and put a space heater or two on a timer. You will have to check the GH temp constant (a remote thermometer is great to track GH temps) to figure out when to run your space heater - we try to keep our GH above 40 degrees minimum. Our GH is sealed but we have to supplement a space heater when outside temps get below 32 degrees (depending how many hours the temp is below 32 degrees) - but have the heater come on at midnight - 3:00 am and go off at 7:00 or 8:00 am this time of year. We only supplement the GH until we get the produce from the plants we want - then shut the GH down for the winter (usually the end of October). We have not had to supplement heat yet - which is unusual for this time of year - we still haven't had our first fall frost!! We have not found an affordable method (although Cole_Robbie's wood burning stove appears to be a great option) to heat the GH from November-March. Please let us know if you come up with one!

Mmm , I am on here looking to learn the best way to keep My adopted pets outdoor room warm , he will be living inside with free access to outside the dog I am adopting is A grey hound , and when I go out during the day , he will be outside as I have an outdoor storage room I am converting for him , it’s dry and insulated and Gives him access to the toilet and he can choose To go inside the room or stay outside , its a great safe room for him if he is napping during the day and to protect him from the weather and make him feel snug and i have cameras I can put up so I can check on him , I have found animals are all different depending on the breed and our family are animal lovers and all have dogs and cats of different varieties and every animal has very different preferences , I live in a warm climate most of the year and we find our dogs choose to sleep where we sleep and choose to snuggle when we are watching tv , and I use electric blankets on our beds , so thats their choice all day in winter even if no one is in the room and we are home , but in summer we find the bigger dogs choose to stay outside and just wander in flop down say hi and go back out to their perfect spot , the staffies in the family as they mature have all built their own lair in a hiding spot regardless of quality man made bedding and our beds and couch on offer , and it’s their retreat and stash spot , the little dogs in the family have doggie doors , and indoor and outdoor beds , i will keep my dog indoors at night , if I am not home in winter but he will be outdoors with his own indoor room during the day , i Will be using cameras to watch him to see how he adapts , now if you have a few dogs together their is no reason to have them all inside at all , in my experience people with multiple dogs who live outside are happy healthy cared for dogs who get the best of both worlds and dont need to live inside , a single dog is different and every dog is different , I know people with a little dog and they say he wants to stay outside and doesnt sleep indoors , they would like him too , but he wont , we live in a great climate here and with the fresh night air and breezes , I personally used to sleep out on my kids trampoline some nights before I got air con in the house and love camping and being outside , i think the single dog locked out and tied up isolated and forgotten about who ends up with behavioural problems is abuse and should be reported , I don’t think the posters here are doing that to their outdoor dogs , I think dogs locked inside all day , day after day would not be right for some of the family dogs at all , the staffies In particular opted to build lairs outside and would go to their outdoor lair instead of being left inside while I went to work but would come inside and chill out when I got home in winter they would be in bed with the electric blanket on , but in summer at bed time they would opt to go out to their lair that they built with household things they stole , and they had a range of dog beds we tried for them to pull apart and chew up to use to build it , summer is too hot here for body heat especially if you are stuck with a fur coat , i see nothing wrong with dogs outside of they are happy and well adjusted animals

Barbara, they used a submersible fountain pump. I have some of these pumps I keep on hand for coolant circulation on diamond cutting machines with a 1/2" outlet on them. They are quite inexpensive so I buy the like 10 at a time and keep extras on the shelf. He used a smaller one and the way he manifolded it using the small tubing caused a lot of restriction. He balanced it by using the valves to close down the first ones on the run. Better to come off the pump with a larger line then manifold off the smaller lines. Easy to remember is twice the diameter 4 times the volume so a 1/2" line can supply 4 1/4" lines. He also used a 50w heater. There is not much difference in cost in the 50, 100, 200 and 300w versions of these heater, all between $20 and $30 so the important part would be how much you want to spend running it, of course this is also going to determine how much heat is going to be pumped into the bed. Here a kwh (kilowatt hour or one kilowatt for one hour) is about $0.25 and a kilowatt is 1,000w so a 100w heater will use 1 kwh running constantly for 10 hours. If run from sunup to sundown through the winter that would be about 14hrs a day so for a 200w cost to run would be maxed around $21 a month, 100w $10.50 and 50w $5.25 each month. That is assuming they run the whole time, they have thermostats for the water temperature so if they are able to elevate the soil temperature enough so the return water comes up in heat then they will shut off until the water in the bucket cools back down to the on temp, maybe bury the bucket right in the bed? Remember my mind is always on free worms, in something like Charitycomposters warm closet above it could sit on one of the shelves so the heat it sheds is inside of the enclosure. I think it would be fun to setup all three sizes and run them along side each other and monitor ground temperatures compared to a set of controls like bare ground, 12" straw. 12" manure. For an outdoor worm bed or for heating the greenhouse beds I am thinking of burying a 1/2" pvc manifold. OhSoSlow, the issue I would have with using solar is when you are getting the heat. Solar is going to warm during the day and you want the heat at night. You could probably do some earth storage by putting the heat down into the ground with the trick being to figure out how deep to put it so that is rises back up through the night and doesnt cook the worms during the day. If you put a circulation loop a couple feet deep it would probably work quite well but any shallower I would think it would warm the surface of the soil too much during the day and lose it quickly as the temperature drops. Here is a link that might be useful: Circulated water heating system This post was edited by Nexev on Sat, Jan 24, 15 at 11:27