Hi, I'm Sue and am extremely excited to have found this site so thank you for the add! I am in southeastern NH, about 45 minutes from the coast. We have a small farm with 2 dogs, 2 barn cats, 3 horses and the chickens.
I became new to chickens in April 2018 when my daughter moved back into our home and brought them with her
We have 2 coops - the main level of the "big" coop has 12 hens of various breeds (don't know them all, but I do know there is a salmon faverolle and a couple of different wyandottes) and 1 leghorn roo. We enclosed the underneath of the coop and built a duck house, which houses a pair of Muscovy, a pair of call ducks, a white crested pekin, and one that I don't know the breed. They have a separate entrance and their own run which is right next to their chicken friends.
We have a separate, smaller coop which has 3 silkie hens (a splash, a blue, and a partridge), a black crested polish hen, and a random bantam hen that one of our silkies hatched...she became broody so we gave her a job, and "Little Red" was the result The silkies have their own run also right next to the chickens.
Being new to chickens, I am finding a wealth of information on this site! I'm especially loving the thread on coop design, as now that I'm getting more into it I am finding a lot of things I would like to change. The two things that are my pain points right now are 1) Keeping fresh water available during these freezing temps , and 2) I would really like to find a new way to cover my runs. That will be a spring project, as we are going to need to do some re-configuring of the runs. Right now they are all covered with poultry netting, which does fine at keeping the chickens in and predators out, but I'm finding is not working out well when we get heavy, wet snow.
As far as the water situation, for right now I'm just changing the waters out several times a day when temps get below freezing. The big coop is wired for electricity but we do not have electricity running out to the coop and my husband does not want extension cords running over the driveway (the coop is about 75 feet from the house on the opposite side). We are investigating other possibilities, including a solar solution..but again, that will be a spring project. So this winter I'm getting my exercise and building muscles carrying out water buckets. My barn has heated water buckets so my horses and cats are in a much better place as far as that goes!
Looking forward to "meeting" everyone!
I became new to chickens in April 2018 when my daughter moved back into our home and brought them with her
We have 2 coops - the main level of the "big" coop has 12 hens of various breeds (don't know them all, but I do know there is a salmon faverolle and a couple of different wyandottes) and 1 leghorn roo. We enclosed the underneath of the coop and built a duck house, which houses a pair of Muscovy, a pair of call ducks, a white crested pekin, and one that I don't know the breed. They have a separate entrance and their own run which is right next to their chicken friends.We have a separate, smaller coop which has 3 silkie hens (a splash, a blue, and a partridge), a black crested polish hen, and a random bantam hen that one of our silkies hatched...she became broody so we gave her a job, and "Little Red" was the result
The silkies have their own run also right next to the chickens.Being new to chickens, I am finding a wealth of information on this site! I'm especially loving the thread on coop design, as now that I'm getting more into it I am finding a lot of things I would like to change. The two things that are my pain points right now are 1) Keeping fresh water available during these freezing temps , and 2) I would really like to find a new way to cover my runs. That will be a spring project, as we are going to need to do some re-configuring of the runs. Right now they are all covered with poultry netting, which does fine at keeping the chickens in and predators out, but I'm finding is not working out well when we get heavy, wet snow.
As far as the water situation, for right now I'm just changing the waters out several times a day when temps get below freezing. The big coop is wired for electricity but we do not have electricity running out to the coop and my husband does not want extension cords running over the driveway (the coop is about 75 feet from the house on the opposite side). We are investigating other possibilities, including a solar solution..but again, that will be a spring project. So this winter I'm getting my exercise and building muscles carrying out water buckets. My barn has heated water buckets so my horses and cats are in a much better place as far as that goes!
Looking forward to "meeting" everyone!
Welcome to our FUNomenal community! Best wishes and have lots of fun!!!! 
