Need help

[jdsbabygirl]

My boyfriend and I are new to chickens. We are getting ready to draw plains for out coop. We live in northern Maine, my first question is do we leave to chicken door open all day in the winter so they have free access to the run? An my next question is we are talking about double stacking out nesting boxes, can we attach them to the door that we want to put in? Not sure if if would be safe for our girls. Any help would be great thanks

 

[kazoo1111]

During winter we put a dog flap on the coop door to keep the heat in. Also chickens don't like to walk on the snow and they should have full acsess to the coop so that if they get to cold they can go back inside. Also they need to get in to lay the eggs. Here's a quick tip about keeping chickens in winter - don't give them a heat lamp in the coop to avoid such a huge change in temperature from the outside to inside.

Oh by the way welcome to BYC!

 

[DeerFangRanch]

Welcome to BYC!!

I agree with kazoo1111. We only have a heater on our chicken's water to keep it from freezing, but do not have extra heat in the coop. Keep it draft free and they'll do fine. More problems with chickens that are used to huddling around a heater (especially if you have a power outage - they can't keep themselves warm), than those who are allowed to get used to cold weather.

We live in the mountains of Colorado - last freeze date for us is June 15th.

 

[audioguy]

We used a design from Purina.com. I had to highly modify it, but the basic dimensions are the same. Its basically a 4 X 4 foot box with a roof. It can handle up to 8 chickens. I have it elevated off the ground so they have a place to go in the foul weather. I also hand a 7 pound feeder under the coop so it also stays dry and off the ground.
I build a watering system using a 5 gallon paint pail running to a 15 foot hose that is wrapped with a pipe warmer and ends connected to a 2" piece of PVC with red nipples I got on Ebay. It only froze once this past winter. The paint pail is the water reservoir and sits just inside a door for my garage so it kinda stays out of the direct cold. If it freezes I use a space heater next to the pail and that keeps it liquid.

We are in central NJ and this past winter is was cold a lot. I have a heat lamp in the coop that is on a timer since they stay outside during the day. It provides some heat but not really much. I try to seal the coop as much as possible, but it must vent to keep out the ammonia which can kill them over time.

I guess the trick is to get breeds that are good in the winter too!