My grandfather always had the water in the center of the coop, rather than at the edges near the walls. Also, I wonder if straw/hay/sawdust would act as insulation around the pan. One last thought, the water pan was always off the floor. The legs held it up maybe about an inch high. With enough chickens, maybe that would be warm air underneath? Or thicker straw/sawdust? Just thoughts that I hope help. My grandfather never had a problem except in the coldest weather, and the coop certainly wasn’t insulated except by the heat of the chickens and the sawdust on the floor. Good luck.

Not true. We ate more rabbit than anything as a child. Rabbit starvation comes from a lack of fat in your diet overall (starving people eating nothing but rabbit). Fry your rabbit in fat, or incorporate any other fat into your daily diet.

Jim,
This is false, and you are confused about the term “rabbit starvation” which means that one expends more calories in the hunt for food than they can harvest and consume. It has nothing to do with rabbits. A breeding pair can provide plenty of nutritious protein for a family. The pelts are useful as well.

Yes, and no. :-)

With your first set of chicks, you will need to keep them locked up, until they know where is home. If possible have a small light that stays on a bit after the sun go down, this encourage the chickens to roost at the same place (inside your coop). You will have to have some sort of nest box for the hens when they get to the age to lay. What you use for a nest box is personal choice. Some folks just use an old 5 gallon bucket mounted to a wall. Anyways, give the hens what they want a secure inside location, last place to go dark at night, off the floor roost, they will make it home. Now, they should want to lay at that location, and most will.
However, at times one or two hens may lay elsewhere. This is more of a problem if you have multiple roosters. One rooster takes a few of his favorite girls out each morning to wherever. I have at times gone out in the yard to find a hen with new chicks following her, complete surprise to me.
Often I can find an off site nest by paying attention during the day to any hen making noise, or calling. The hens will at times call out after laying an egg. If I hear a hen in another building, I will sometimes check it out, just notice where the noise is coming from, if the hen is already outside, check out the building early the next day, if she enters must stay still watches where she goes (often well hidden). Then collect eggs if only a few, if a large number of eggs already, I sometimes just let her finish her new family.
My experience is they will almost never lay out in the open, so if you only have a few out buildings you should be ok.

Chickens are just too easy to care for not to have around.

Actually, table scraps work fine for feeding chickens. They will finish off almost anything, they eat even mice if they can catch them. (not a fun thing to watch)
I use almost zero bagged chicken feed, just some during the worse of winter. However I do have endless supply of corn, and wheat in our area, still a person soon learns that if allowed to walk about the hens find most of their own food.

Chickens are just too easy to care for not to have around.

I love the idea of having Guinea hens to eat the fleas! We have had a bad problem with fleas because our neighbors have so many dogs. I have two outside dogs and two yappers inside. They are eaten up with fleas and I have tried yard spray everything. If the hens will do the job, I am getting so chicks to start.

however, rabbit is not a good long term survival food source because it does not contain enough fat and prolonged use as food will lead to “rabbit starvation”