Winter is Coming! Checklists, tips, advice for a newbie

[Alaskan]

For some reason my carhartts always play with battery acid....the acid always wins...

 

[bigmrg74]

For some reason my carhartts always play with battery acid....the acid always wins...

Acid might be one of the few things that a carhartt can't stand up well to.

 

[aart]

I wish carhartt made the barn coat(thigh length) with a hood like the waist length jacket has.

Just sayin'...as a distraction cause I don't want to think too hard about the M and W words yet.

 

[Alaskan]

 

[GldnValleyHens]

Bogtown and Alaskan,
Thank you for your responses!
I will put a roof on the run, and maybe some plastic to keep the run snow-free. The coop is for three chickens, and right now they have a moveable fence that they spend most days in- I just connect it to the door of the run and they go in and out freely. (They had been more free-ranging, but the neighbors said they didn't like that the chickens might be able to get into their horse pasture and poop on the horse's grass, and asked me to contain them. )

I just had to say, your neighbors are ridiculous! As if three chickens could poop so much on the grass to even make a difference. I have horses, and 17 chickens and 6 ducks. They usually ignore the pasture except for a few foragers, and the poop immediately dries and sinks into the ground anyway.

 

[RodNTN]

Usually just a good snow or two here is the worst it gets, I do keep a heated waterer, because last year it was frigid

 

[Erik Fobo]

since you have been thru so many winters how do you keep your water from not freezing in the autowater things that I have to fill everymorning?

 

[Alaskan]

usually we just pop out the ice cube every morning, then fill with fresh water.

 

[aart]

since you have been thru so many winters how do you keep your water from not freezing in the autowater things that I have to fill everymorning?

What kind of 'autowater thing'?
I use a heater in my waterer, just top it off every morning.
Before that I had two waterers and swapped them out several times a day.

 

[lcwmt]

We are building our newest coop in preparation for Winter. It has been most helpful to read through this (entire!) thread. Thank you all for your sharing of experiences and knowledge. [once the new coop is done, I will post a record of the process, our decision making etc. It won't be perfect but it will work for the girls, we hope!]

In December of 2015 there were three fires in the county seat town and at least one in the county. It's the latter that is most important. Our neighbors, fifth generation ranchers and 2 miles South, were awakened by their dog at 3 a.m.
The house was burning.
They got out with the dog and the 4 house cats and nothing else.
By 4:30 a.m. everything was gone including the chicken coop where the fire started. The heat lamp had been dislodged.
The fire trucks got to the site in rapid time but water froze in the hoses; the house could not be saved.
40 below will do that.
Two weeks later the Fire Marshall published an article in the county paper: "Chickens are resourceful. Straw and heat lamps are not a good combination."

My take-away: avoid flammable situations, trust the critters and make it easy for them to survive without amenities.