Making it a Little Easier On Myself

I am in the Midwest and have just started getting the ice, snow and sleet, so I am trying to make it easier for me to get into the chicken yard and house after this stuff is over. I stapled a sturdy plastic bag over the pop door opening mechanism, because it faces North, and will freeze solid. I left the gate to the yard unlatched, because the latch will freeze. I put cardboard down in front of the door to the yard, to enable me (hopefully) to pull the cardboard out of the way so I can open the gate. I also put big cardboard pieces in their yard, to hopefully give me some open spaces so the girls will come out of their house in the morning.
I also stopped at a house down the road who has a big tractor with a scoop on it. He was scooping snow off driveways last snow storm, so I added my house to his list. I don't feel like shoveling it off again!
I'll let you know how well my attempts work, or not.

so lucky, I like your proactive approach, especially the snow removeal from your driveway. But I have a few questions. Won't the pop door mechanism freeze anyway regardless if it's covered in plastic. Seems to me the temperature will be below freezing even with a cover. Won't the cardboard in front of the gate get covered with lots of snow and make it heavy to drag/remove? I hope that I'm wrong and that they work for you. Those snow storms sure do cause a lot of work for you.

Mary

I have a "porch" on the coop, So Lucky. The roof extends out and covers a board floor.

My chickens have never been willing to venture out into snow. Just being "out," they are still on shavings and not much snow blows in.

Is there a possibility for a shed-roof over your run by next winter?

Steve

Oh, Marshallsmyth, if only we could share the moisture I would!

So lucky, I should have taken a look at other coops before building mine. The pop door (also facing north) is close to the ground level and needs to be shoveled after a snow. Not just to open the door, but to let air flow into the coop. I have left the coop open on nicer days, but this year's brood just won't go out into the snow. Also wish I had built the coop a bit closer to the house.

Usually DH shovels a path for me, but after this last 5 inches and blowing, I have been traipsing out on my own three feet with water and snacks. So far so good, I haven't lost a single egg to freezing, but that is as much related to my early lights getting them laying before I get out in the morning with food and water. Now with the temps going to -25 or so tonight, I am SO glad I insulated the coop when I built it. With a red heat lamp, the chickens, eggs, and water have managed to keep warm enough to avoid frost bite and freezing. Tonight should tell the story. This will be the coldest temperature since I got my chickens.

I hate heating the place because the loss of electricity could be worse with everyone is used to artificial warmth, but I still have a couple of girls who haven't completely regrown their feathers -- they molted so late. The birds with full feathers should be okay, but those with bare backs would have serious danger of freezing in spots.

My preparations to making their winter care easier is to put their food in the coop. I use a trash can raised up so I don't take away any floor space. That way I don't have to carry food to them or Rusty every day. In the summer the food is stored in the garden shed so I have more room in the coop.

If you take Red's coop and put a center wall down it . . . move the door over so you can get into that side . . . and kind of completely open that half from which you have moved the door - you'd have my coop.

You'd also have to get rid of the attractive siding and ditch that cute glass door .

So, I have one half of Linn's coop - completely insulated. The pop door opens into the "porch" area. It is cold out there but there is wire to, hopefully, keep predators out. Keeps the chickens in, easily enuf. I have to open a door to allow the hens out into the yard.

The pop door is no trouble to open or close and I can reach it from outside the coop. It stays open unless the temperature goes below 15°f. They don't need to be in the yard during the winter.

The insulated part is tiny but the chickens have always been willing to spend a lot of time on their porch. They get fresh water twice a day if it will freeze.

Steve
nice looking coop & chickens, Red

I have the same problem with the latch freezing, though it’s not the latch freezing, it’s the water turning to ice that freezes the latch so it won’t operate. I keep a stick handy to beat the ice out of it so I can open it.


I like your idea of trying to cover it to keep the moisture out though. I’ll have to think how I might be able to apply that idea to mine.

"Attractive siding" and "cute glass door" cost next to nothing. The painted cedar siding was on an apartment house we resided with vinyl. The siding was piled in a sheltered spot for 25 years until we found a use for it. Turned over and recut at the bottom it turned out rather well. You can't find such clear cedar siding today.

The door was a home improvement store special. We got six of them, as well as six of those used on the garden shed, for $3 to $5 each. No jam or threshold, just the door. Even the window is recycled. It came off a wooden storm door. We turned the storm glass sideways and added hinges with 1/4 inch fencing mesh outside and the screen insert inside the coop. I leave the window at least partly open most of the year for ventilation.

Even the base was recycled. When the Grands outgrew their sandy pit it became part of the coop. I certainly would have said I needed a bigger coop, but I went outside one day to find DH had emptied the sand box, dragged it down to the garden shed, and leveled it on the ground. After all that work, what could I say but, "Thank you, Dear, that's the perfect size".

The only things new were the insulation and some of the OSB board on the roof. DS built those fine laying boxes out of barn wood left over from his furniture jobs. I still want to put an inexpensive interior cover over the insulation, add ventilation in the soffit and run permanent electricity to the coop (right now I'm using an extension cord from the garden shed).

I'm pretty proud of my little coop.

Well, you should be!

I think you might have helped my DW understand the wisdom of me putting in a treehouse about 20 years ago, Red! I had carefully planned out how a maximum amount of space could be gained from that tree! Without going 2 stories, I might add!

I can just hear you saying, ". . . that's the perfect size, Dear."

Steve