Welcome to the forum!
Glad you joined us!
You don’t ask easy questions. And I’ll warn you. You’ll get a lot of different opinions on this forum. Part of that is that we keep them in so many different conditions and circumstances that different things work for different ones of us. We have members all over the world covering mountains and beaches, tropics to colder than you. Another thing is that there is seldom one right answer that covers all of us. Instead of there only being one way to do something, there are many different ways that work.
How do you keep up the number of egglaying?
This question sparks a lot of debate. Some people believe you should give the hens some time off. Others want the eggs and want them now. Just different opinions.
Often if a pullet starts laying in the late summer or fall, she will continue laying through the winter without molting. Not always, but often. An older hen will practically always molt and quit laying when the days get shorter and use the nutrients that were going into eggs to grow new feathers. I’ve had pullets do both and I do not add supplemental light.
What triggers the molt is that the days get shorter. You’ll see a lot of people mention 14 hours when talking about supplemental light, but as far from the equator as you are, that could be risky. As long as your days get, your hens could see the days getting shorter and go into molt before your days get as short as 14 hours. But basically if you add light so the days don’t get shorter, they should keep laying.
One of the things to consider. When hens go a really long time without a molt, egg quality drops and egg production drops. That’s why commercial operations can’t just keep the lights constant and keep the same hens producing eggs for several years. They have to either feed them through a molt when they are not laying eggs or replace them. It is a bit complicated.
Do they need a heat lamp? How many hours should you leave the heat lamp on?
Another fun question, and one with some controversy. Heat is more of a danger to chickens than cold. They wear a down coat all year long, though they lose some of that in the heat and it thickens up in the cold. A whole lot more chickens die from heat issues than cold. There is a thread on this forum about people keeping flocks in Alaska without supplemental heat.
Your biggest danger in cold weather is frostbite, not them freezing to death. I’ve seen chickens sleep in trees in 0 degrees Fahrenheit weather. Someone on the forum told a story of a flock that went feral and spent the winter outside in Northern Michigan. The danger of cold weather to chickens is often greatly exaggerated on this forum.
Of course how successful they are depends on a couple of things. First is ventilation. You don’t need to close up your coop to try to keep them snug. That is dangerous. They need for the moisture and ammonia (that forms from their poop) to be able to escape from the coop, so you need good ventilation.
The other thing they need is to not be in a direct breeze. In the Twin Cities area, you may have felt the effects of wind chill. How did those flocks that slept outside handle that? The one I saw were not sleeping out on a lonely branch in a dead tree on top of a ridge squawking defiantly in the teeth of a blizzard. That’s something you’d see on Disney. They were sleeping in a thicket in a protected valley and could move to get out of the direct wind. I suspect that Northern Michigan flock was much the same.
So how do you provide good ventilation without a breeze hitting them? Have your ventilation openings higher than their heads when they are sleeping. Any breeze goes over the top of them and carries out the bad stuff, especially since it is lighter than air and rises to the top.
Here are some articles that might help you from a woman that was in Ontario. I’ll throw in the muddy run article just because I think it is so good.
Pat’s Big Ol' Ventilation Page
https://www.backyardchickens.com/web/viewblog.php?id=1642-VENTILATION
Pat’s Cold Coop (winter design) page:
https://www.backyardchickens.com/web/viewblog.php?id=1642-winter-coop-temperatures
Pat’s Big Ol' Mud Page (fixing muddy runs):
https://www.backyardchickens.com/web/viewblog.php?id=1642-fix-a-muddy-run
Do they range in the snow?
Not at first. Chickens generally don’t like anything that is new. I don’t get a lot of snow down here. If I get one and it lasts a day or two, mine avoid it like it is dangerous. But if it lasts a few days, some of them at least will go out and forage in it. Mine like to find the weeds and grasses that stick out above it when it is only a couple of inches deep. I’ve had some wade through 9” of snow to go check out the compost heap. But at first, they don’t get near it.
Something else I’ll mention along these lines. They do not like a cold wind hitting them. If there is a cold breeze they stay in shelter. But here is a photo of what mine chose to do on a calm day when the temperature was 4 degrees above zero. I left the pop door open and let them decide if they wanted to go out.
Hope you get something from this that helps. Good luck!
