Are A-Frame/Arks Okay for a Chicago Winter??

[chicks4erin]

Hi All - I've been wanting chickens for over a year now and quite honestly the only thing holding this up is getting them a proper home. Everyone at home is on board and excited. I'm overwhelmed by the choices as well as actually having to build something. I saw this a-frame/ark on craigslist and thought it looked good/sturdy My concern is will it survive a Chicago winter and will the hens survive in this in a Chicago winter.

Anyone out there have an a-frame in a severe weather location?
http://chicago.craigslist.org/nch/grd/2897708120.html




Some background - last year I was all excited to embark on the garden coop. I ordered the plans http://www.thegardencoop.com/ and once I read them was completely intimidated. The plan was to build last fall and get the chicks this spring - didn't happen. I would sooooo love this coop though.



Then last night at 2 a.m. - totally OCD right now with this. I found this cool website that has fence runs in which I would get a 4 x 8 - http://www.chickencondos.com/Chicken Coops & Runs.html that look quite good and thought about either adding an Eglu Go or actually building the "City Biddy". The bonus of this would be I could get my chicks quickly --- we are talking about 3 chicks.





Any thoughts, I so appreciate. What I like about the moveable coop fence and the ark would be that we could move around our yard.

Thank you all!! Have a great Saturday. Sorry for the long ramble.

 

[OCpeep]

It seems like any of those options would work though I'm not familiar with Chicago's climate (besides it being the windy city).

 

[Peep_Chirp_Quack]

We live about 80 miles south of downtown Chicago. We looked into lots of plans for our coop and ended up with the A-frame style coop that we move around our yard. Our chickens have been fine in the winter (of course this was a warm winter!) I would think that any of the coops you are interested in would work fine. If the weather were to get too cold, you could always use a heating lamp. We actually used a few bales of straw around the base of our coop to block the wind this winter. Seemed to help.

 

[mikecnorthwest]

The Garden Coop is a great coop and a great plan. If you really want it I would encourage you to see if there's a local handyman, contractor, out of work framer, etc. who could build it for you. Anyone with tools and a little experience can build that coop. Perhaps contact a company that builds sheds and see if anyone there wants a little extra work.