What you are doing so far is good. If you can keep the box in a warm area the hot water bottle should be enough or place the heating pad with a thick layer of towels over it in the box. If there is room in the box the chick with move closer or further away from the heat as needed. Do take the...
We to have hawks and other birds of prey around that we wanted to keep out of the chicken run. We covered the top of the run with chicken wire. Our run is 8'x20' and we placed boards every so often to help support the chicken wire and then used scrap lumber to cover the edges of the wire and...
Hi, we live in the interior of Alaska and have kept chickens for 6 years. We started with an established flock given to us by a friend. We finished enclosing our kids old playhouse to use as a coop. It is insulated and in the winter we use a 250 watt heat lamp plus a standard white light to...
Your coop looks nice. Incorporating storage inside is a good idea. I wish we had done that. One thing that has been helpful in our coop was placing boards underneath each of the roost to catch the majority of the droppings. To clean it I use a wide paint scraper and scrape it clean into a...
We have 8 birds and yes we have paid to have them taken care of while we are gone. Most of the time we trade animal sitting duties with neighbors. We watch their animals and they watch ours. I would appreciate knowing there is someone around that would be willing to care for our animals for a...
Ask around and see what others with small flocks in your area do for overwintering their birds. A heat lamp and/or and incandescent light bulb would be a source of heat. We have a water heater also. You could also have 2 waterers and trade them out if one freezes. Take one inside to thaw and...
My birds will eat most anything.They always have access to layer pellets and water. I save kitchen scraps for them. They love greens, fruit, popped corn, bread, any veggies, left over pasta, apple cores. When I weed the garden i give them what ever I pull. I do not feed them onions or garlic as...
In the winter we add a shelf to the coop and put the waterer up there. We also have a hole cut into it and a work light screwed underneath keep the water liquid.
Just keeping it elevated may help.
We also have 2 water containers so if necessary we can take one out to the coop in the morning...
We have a run that is half covered and half open. The ground is what ever was under the vegetation when we built. It did not take long for them to scratch the vegetation into dirt. I have added sand to the run that we collected from the local river bank. I rake it 1 or 2 times a year and have...
Hi, we live in the interior of Alaska and have kept chickens for about 6 years. Both banties and larger cold hardy breeds. We converted our kids old wood play house using left over building supplies from our house. We did insulate but it is not tight. We use a 250wt heat lamp that hangs from the...