Backyard Chickens in the Winter Time

We've been asked several times how we take care of our chickens in the cold, Chicago winters.  Hope this video answers those questions and gives some ideas to those of you who might be thinking about starting your first backyard flock in the spring.

The Chicken Ark

So I'm still working on the chicken coop but thought I would post some pictures of my progress here as several people have asked me about it.  We wanted a coop that we could move around the yard so as not to wear down the grass or mess up any one spot in the yard.  We also wanted a design that would be easy to clean and that would make feeding and watering as low-maintenance as possible.  After looking at a lot of plans on the Internet I finally settled on this one.  It's called the Catawba converti-coop and it seems that a lot of city dwellers out there are building it.  Here's the link if you're interested.

Here's what the final product will look like when I'm done.  This is not a picture of my coop, I just grabbed it off the Internet to show you what it will look like when I'm done.  Actually, mine will be better as I plan to pimp it out with an internal gravity feeder and a relatively automatic watering system to make feeding and watering much less of a chore (Work smarter, not harder is my motto).  Stay tuned for more on the feeding and watering system.

Here's my work in progress.  You can see the basic frame below is very simple.  It's just a matter of cutting the correct angles and following the instructions.  You will need a miter saw to cut the angles.

And here's my son pretending to be a chicken.

The kids turned it into their "fort" before I could even get half way done with it.  They might just like it more than the chickens!

Almost done now.  The chicks are giving it a try.

The following pictures are for those of you who are interested in the details.  Just click to enlarge.

Here's the built-in gravity feeder.  I made it out of scrap wood I had lying around and the side of a plastic storage bin someone had thrown in the alley (score!).  It should hold about a weeks worth of food and moves along with the arc.  It's built around a trough-style chicken feeder you can get at Belmont Feed and Seed for about twelve bucks.

 You can see here that it's built into the door so I just open it and fill with feed.  Easy-peasy!

 Here's the ramp that leads up to the roost and nest boxes where the chickens will sleep safely at night and lay their delicious eggs.  I made it out of an old table leaf and some phone line.  It pulls up and down from the outside.  It's attached with regular door hinges.

Stay tuned for the watering system.  I don't know exactly how I'm going to build it into the coop yet but I do know it will involve PVC pipe and poultry nipples.  My goal is to build a system that I can fill once a week and forget about it.  We'll see.