Hello, I'm in Raymond, ME and I'm new to chickens. It has been an adventure so far. We got the chicks at BlueSeal in Windham, and raised them on the porch for the first couple months. We have hunting hounds and we keep them in a shed with three runs off one side. The inside of the shed is insulated with foam insulation. I took the other side of the shed and made a 3' by 8' coup with a door for the chickens to come and go as they pleased and a pulley system so I can lock them in if I want. I originally went with 5 gallon buckets on there side for the nests with shavings in them, the chickens seemed to like the coup, but were not touching the nests, I didn't think much of it until October when they were supposed to start laying, finally towards the end of October we discovered one chicken laying outside in a corner by the house. Only that one was laying though, then a couple weeks later we discovered another two were laying in a wood pile next to the kennel. I was extremely frustrated that they were not laying in the coup. So I removed the 5 gallon buckets thinking that was the issue. That did not help. so it was suggested that I try straw instead of shavings....ok, but my nests were up off the ground and the chickens had been laying right on the ground outside. So out of frustration I put a bunch of straw under the nesting boxes....go figure, I am now getting all five chickens to lay eggs in the same spot in the coup. YEE HAA!!! Now I'm starting to get concerned about the cold, my chickens are free ranging and we recently cleaned up 90% of the leaves in our yard, they have now started wandering over to the neighbors yard where he has plenty of leaves, not sure if it's the leaves or they are looking for different types of or more food. We are feeding them pellet chicken feed in the coop too. My main concern is the snow though, does the now not freeze there feet? Do they dig through the snow to get the stuff on the ground? Should I get a different type of feed and feed them more in the winter? Heat Lamp or No Heat Lamp? That is the question, have herd many different opinions on this, but not sure where those people are from, being in Maine and how cold it can get (excluding last winter which was extremely warm in comparison) I would think they would need something to keep them warm, but then the hounds get a good bail of straw and just cruel up and are cozy warm. They have there individual boxes though, and the coop is just plastic chicken wire inside on two sides and open to the shed.
Sorry for the long winded question...
I can, for those of you who have them, also wrangle critters, milk them, and clean the hooves of horses. Hopefully they aren't leaners as I am rather small 
I do enjoy manual labor, though it's been hard to find time to build anything with the toddler monster trying to "help" (who, incidentally, is getting his own tool box for Christmas. lol).
