North Dakotans UNITE! - Page 5

I don't free range mine... mostly because they do some serious damage in the garden.  I bought one of those temporary shelters that Menards has and instead of putting a canopy top I totally covered it with chicken wire.  It seems to handle snow load very well. 

I am sorry that I didn't respond to your chick pics...  I lost my favorite cat an April 29th (she had health problems) and it has been difficult.  But your chicks are adorable!  I have BBW turkey poults that shipped out today so should be here in the next few days.  Do you still want the BR turkey tom?

i sell a few eggs but the laying hen market is very good . i sold 32 pullet and year old laying hens this past season. kinda planning on breeding and hatching for next season. the rhode island reds are good cross breeders for laying hens and meat cockeral. i let my current laying flock, 15 hens and 1 roo, freerange. i have a large farmstedand lots of surrounding land but as the flock gets bigger ( next year ) I may have to build more runs to keep them from raiding my garden and diging holes all over the front yard. thet will do that. plus the little gifts they leave all over.

I don't mind the little gifts, just fertilizer.  I need to build a bigger movable coop and put then in sections of the garden that aren't being used.  I had them out one year using deer netting type stuff, worked ok until they started slowly disappearing.  I had to fix a hole in the netting then found that thare was a family of foxes that had moved in.  I don't hate foxes like I hate raccoons, the coons kill a whole bunch, the foxes just took what they needed at the time.

So if you sold pullets, what did you do with the cockerals?

well you may have noticed i said the rir was good for laying hens and MEAT birds. cant by chicken like that at Dans! I have plans for a 4 x 8 foot, 4 foot high ranger with a 1o x 8 foot attached run on bike rims that can be moved by hand. me and bud the black lab german shepard mix, along with the mosberg 20 gauge have taken back the farmsted over the last few years. lot of late night in pajamas in the tree rows cause buds got something pinned down. got rid of a lot of coons that way. oh yea! we got 3 inches of rain since this morning. about 2 inches in a hour and a half at 5 this evening. gullywasher!

I am so sorry to hear about your cat My dogs are like my family and I know how hard it would be if I lost one.  I will take that tom off of your hands! Do you think he will be ok in a horse stall covered in welded wire in the barn during his "learn where home is period"?  Can he fly over the top?  I guess it is 5' high.  If so we can put welded wire on top also. 

How is your garden coming along?  My husband and I spent two whole weekends tilling and getting rid of rocks.  Then we laid out patways to make 12, 10' x 12' beds, hoping we can teach our young sons boundaries so they don't trample through the garden.  Then of course the weather has been blah ever since and we have nothing planted I do have a lot of plants started in my laundry room, but I am starting to worry about the veggies I was going to plant straight from seed. 

Living on the edge - the rain was crazy here yesterday evening, I am from WY where it rarely rains and I was about half panicked trying to run out and save my hanging plants!  My DH wants to look in to meat birds next year and keeping them in a moveable pen.  We have two corrals with insane monster grass that seems to grow as soon as the mower passes.  We wouldn't mind a little feathered help controlling it, not to mention a freezer full of fresh chicken.  We still have to work up the guts to process them ourselves though.  I guess it would help if we find a plucker too. lol.

Have a good day fellow North Dakotans! Don't get blown away in all this wind!

Hi neighbors!!! (thanks Shirley for the thread!)

My name is Zoa and I found this forum about a week ago. Our family lives in Buxton according to our zip code, but we are closer to Mayville and that is where our kids go to school. We are about 30 mins or so south of Grand Forks We have goats, chickens & guineas so far.

It is great to see other NoDaks here!!! We got our first batch of chicks a week ago: 11 Silkies, 8 Araucanas & 6 Bantam Cochins. So far, they are all doing great and growing like weeds!! I am thrilled that none of them have died.

I am eagerly waiting SPRING so I can be outside as much as possible!!!!

Greetings fellow Dakotans,

I recently found this site and am happily exploring. I had to do a search to find our state, but boy am I glad I did. Currently I am living just out side of Powers Lake in western ND.

I look forward to getting to know my fellow chicken enthusiasts from ND.

Waving Hi from just on the other side of Minot!  I have been to the Powers Lake area before, I bought some ducks from somebody many years ago.  I hope you enjoy your stay here, there are a lot of knowledgeable folks.

Happy newyear to all in ND. What wonderful weather we are having lately. This year I will be breeding my heritage/purebreds I have been working on including Rhode Island Red, both rosecomb and singlecomb, Rhode Island White(from Duane Urch), and Dominique along with the sexlink crosses of these breeds, and my new project, Red Broilers (Dark Cornish X RIR ).Starting in late April, I will have these chicks for sale, pickup only. 

Hello my fellow North Dakotans, I too am a newbie chicken owner. I recently bought a pair each of Black Australorps, Barred Rock, and Buff Orpingtons. I am hoping to come by some Silver Laced Wyandottes and some Coronation Sussex or even a Light Sussex. I just started my coop and run this evening for my girls and I hope to have it finished by this weekend for a Chicken/Bunny swap at the Stutsman County Fair Grounds this weekend. My girls are still about a month old and 2 weeks old.

I am wondering how early I can order chicks next year if I have a brooder set up. I don't want to get them too early so that they don't get too big for the brooder (I use a 500 gal watering tank) and then I have no where to put them before the weather gets nice enough for them at that in between stage/size. However, I would love to get them earlier so they are older and can start laying sooner too. Anyone have any thoughts, guidelines, suggestions, etc.?