Great to have you! Definitely get them as chicks and your partner will fall in love straightaway! There's no way you can't
Ours are layers and pets, too.
AllenK pinged some of the heavy hitters for you. They've got a lot knowledge to share! For the coop just remember: ventilate, ventilate, ventilate! Common wisdom says 1 sq ft of ventilation per bird. And eliminate drafts too
I'm in Maine like Lazy Gardener and it gets cold here! But select the right cold-hardy breeds and you don't need to worry about heating your coop.
You've got a queue of good info in your thread already! Here's a little more (I hope
)
BREEDS
For breeds you'll hear as many opinions as there are chicken keepers. I'd suggest focusing in cold-hardy, dual-purpose, heritage breeds. We have barred Plymouth rocks, Rhode Island Reds, and one black Australorp (we lost her sister as a chick). The barred rocks are zany madcaps - I can't imagine a flock without them! Endless fun... The Australorp is an absolute sweetheart. Very quiet and demur, but so kind. No drama at all with her. If we get any more chickens, they will be Australorps for sure. The RIRs are honestly a pain in the butt at times. We love them dearly, and they can make us laugh a lot (look at my avatar!), but they can be total drama queens. One of them is quite cuddly, which is a treat. But they when they "go off" they can be a handful compared to the calm, sweet Australorp, or the carefree barred rocks. I don't think I'd want any more RIRs. And I don't think I could handle the excitement of more barred rocks! All three breeds are excellent layers.
HEATING
I'd strongly advise AGAINST heating a coop for many reasons but the most succinct: it's unnecessary, and it takes work, and it consumes energy. So why bother? With the right cold-hardy, dual-purpose breeds there is no need to heat. Those temperatures you mention are pretty mild, compare to what some chicken keepers deal with. Many people in northerly climes won't even consider heating until it's around 40 below. Our babies were thrust into the winter at only 7 months old. The next thing you know we had protracted periods of daytime highs around -5F (-20C) and lows around -20F (almost -30C).
I have been battling frostbite on their combs (but not feet or wattles) because they'd rather be outside than in the coop in almost any weather. Winds will be sustained in the cold snaps often in the 10-20 MPH range and they don't seem to mind! We built a sheltered playhouse in the run so they can both be outside AND stay out of the wind. But those crazy cluckers want to be outside when it's daylight! So a heated coop wouldn't be of much use anyway. Plus it's a potential fire hazard. Plus it costs money in materials and heating energy. And there's the labor to install it. And if they become acclimated to a heated environment, what's your contingency plan for power outages? You can't give them heat and then take it away, that could kill them. They're surprisingly sensitive to environmental changes.
COMPOST
Kind of like breeds, there are as many ways to compost as there are people doing it! We do NOT segregate coop cleanings from the rest of the compost. Everything goes into the one active compost pile and chicken manure is one of my main nitrogen sources in the compost pile to break down the carbon-heavy stuff (like pine shavings). I don't allow the chickens to have access to my compost because my compost is PLANT food, not chicken food. If the chicken eats food out of the compost pile, those nutrients that would have gone to my garden plants now went to my already well-fed chickens. It's just not an efficient use of nutrients. Our goal is a zero-fertilizer garden, so I need as rich a compost as I get. And the bugs in the compost that the chickens would love, I need those in my compost and in my garden, too.
That's just my take: Chicken feed is cheap, even the best stuff (if you find it the right way). Fertilizer is not. Eventually I hope to grow all my own chicken feed instead of buying it, but that's a couple years down the road.
GARDEN
Chickens LOVE veggies. And the LOVE green stuff. And they also seem driven to try to eat most anything at least once just to see if it's edible, even if it isn't. So we do let then into our garden, but we keep them in a tight group and let them forage in the wood chip mulch between beds - but we do our darndest to keep them out of the beds! They will happily eat anything they find in there! It takes constant supervision, something most keepers don't have the time to do. Lucky we're homesteaders so we set our own schedules. Or put a fence around your beds, but that makes gardening a pain.
Random Tidbits:
Chickens attempt to eat just about anything they come into contact with. And not just things like bark, sticks, pine needles, wood shavings, straw and sawdust. [In fact I think 30% of my chickens' diet is pine shavings and wheat straw! One of the many reasons we make sure they are drinking copious amounts of water and eating grit. But I digress.] But when I say anything, I meant it: zip ties, weed barrier, hardware, broken glass, insulation, styrofoam - seriously! They are highly intelligent but often seem to exhibit a complete lack of what I'd call "mammalian common sense." So just be vigilant. They can and WILL eat things they shouldn't if given half a chance.
We do not use supplemental lighting to stimulate egg laying. They are pets and they will enjoy retirement once they're done laying. A hen is born with all of her yolks available. She will only lay however many are in her over the course of her life. It doesn't matter if it takes two years or five, the same number will come out. So our philosophy is let them take any laying breaks if they want to. But that's just us
However it does have the upside of not having to install a timer on the coop light!
Next, the inverse of my heated coop caution: If you don't heat your coop and they get acclimated to life in the cold winter, be VERY careful at bringing them into a heated environment. If you get a sick or injured bird and have to bring it into the house for treatment and monitoring, that chicken very well may be living with you in the house until winter is over. Also you cannot bring a cold-acclimated chicken immediately into a heated house, especially if it's sick or injured. The shock can be fatal. Find a halfway point (temperature wise) where you can administer care and monitor. From there you can make the decision of re-introduction over winter-house-chicken.
At BYC it's helpful to put your location (in whatever detail you are comfortable with) in your profile. It's an easy shortcut that conveys a lot of information and helps people respond to you more efficiently/appropriately. There are also geographically-specific threads - here's the Canadian one:
https://www.backyardchickens.com/threads/canadians-check-in-here.144/
I don't know if they have separate ones for individual provinces, though.
I'm not sure what the Canadian equivalent of the US land grant universities' cooperative extension offices are. But there must be some equivalent? Find your local office and ask them what diseases, parasites, and predators they recommend paying attention to. Marek's Disease, for instance, needs to be immunized against within the chick's first 48 hours of life and preferably the first 24; an important logistical detail! They can help you navigate that maze. Also ask them for a list of local POULTRY vets. Like the first aid kit Smuvers mentioned, you need this information BEFORE you have a chicken emergency.
Lastly let me commend your commitment to "...making sure we are 100% prepared for these chickens before they get here." We were the same way. But you know what? That's impossible
You won't be 100% and you CAN'T be. We tried to be - yet we lost our first chick on her sixth day after an arduous three-day struggle. In retrospect it was most likely a congenital condition (avoid bringing home any chicks that act lethargic - you probably can't help them). But that knowledge doesn't make it any easier.
Punctured comb on Christmas day in the middle of a blizzard? Not my best day ever
Crazy, unexpected things can and will happen.
But don't worry! Just do you best! Be diligent in research and vigilant in care. If you are committed, you and your chicken will have the best lives you can have. And they are a real joy to have!
Great to have you here! Enjoy the adventure of chickening!
