Hi Pandoras Kitten, and
Square footage per bird is usually suggested around 2 to 4 square feet per bird. Build your coop as large as you can afford, and can do in this weather what you can, but if you need to, you can always add on to it later. Few of us have built only one coop and never made changes to it. Build the chicken side now, you can always build the rabbit side later.
Free pallets are great, there is a how to YouTube video which shows the whole process. They used about 200 pallets, so the more you can find, the better. For our addition, we used a material called t-11, which is inexpensive, and we stuffed the space between the framing with insulation and then stapled feed bags to prevent pecking at it.
If you can, make it easy for yourself to close the pop door without entering the run, using a dowel stick or a pulley, so that you can open and close it up easily.
You'll also want a larger door accessed from the outside to clean it out when you need to.
This is a photo of my current coop- before we put the run roof on, we only had the little area where the heated waterer and the ramp are that first winter.
One nest box for about every four hens, so you'll want three or four of them. If you can access those from the outside too, you're in good shape.
If you roof your run, slant it as much as possible so the snow slides off. And I do suggest roofing at least some of the run, especially near the pop door and ramp.
My favorite bedding for chicks is shavings, pine shavings are only a few dollars from the feed store, so I just pick it up when I buy feed. Make sure the chicks are fully feathered before you put them outside. When I brood chicks, I use the largest plastic totes they have at
Walmart. Those run about 25$ each, but you'll want two of them by the time your chicks are four weeks old. Also, they can fly within days, so you'll want a screen to put over your brooders.
If it was me, I would probably brood this batch around 8 weeks or as long as I could stand it since the weather has been iffy. In the springtime, I'm usually really tired of the dust by five weeks. Put old sheets over everything in the brood room. It will make clean up a lot better.
There are threads on BYC about brooding that will probably be extremely helpful, from the basics, to the complicated.
Chicks will kick up lots of bedding and poo into their food and water, youll want to change it twice a day. Keep them warm, dry, and prevent splay-leg by not using newspaper or anything that can get slippery. They also like to perch, so a little scrap-wood perch is helpful.
It is really awesome to own chickens, I hope all of this information is helpful rather than overwhelming. Just take one thing at a time and learn as you go.
The first time I hatched chicks I accidentally killed four of them by putting the heat too directly over them. I had to keep reminding myself that this is a learning experience. All of us make mistakes sometimes.
