Wisconsin "Cheeseheads"

[Badger Farm]

While this mild weather has been nice, it’s killing businesses up here in the northern counties. With no snow, we don’t have sledders coming up to visit our stores, bars and restaurants. Business is waaay down from last year, when it seemed like the snow would never stop falling! (We had 100” on our land alone).

On the other hand, the ladies have been loving running around, finding ticks and other critters to nibble on. Plus, they’re been consistent layers all winter! Well, until the last two days. Went from 55 down to -5 in less than 12 hours!

 

[TOR]

So I bought a car or my brother did for me in California, went out drove it back beginning Feb.
Around Des Moines Iowa saw truck, 4 doors packed with people, trailer and 4 sleds. My thought was where are they going or come from to go snowmobiling?
I bet lack of snow really hurt up north, Crazy winter weather this year.
Good deals on snowmobiles this year I bet.
Dont think here they had the trails even open for a month here and shut them down.

 

[EagleEyes]

Probably coming back from the mountains.
I had one once. The trails are across the road from me and were open for a little over a week I think.

 

[growanstede]

Sure feels like spring out there for sure, and I'm just waiting for the second (third?) winter to drop again. But YES the birds are thrilled and we got the barn cleaned out a month earlier than usual! [Hello again from Marshall, I am formerly keedokes and changed my handle!]

 

[EagleEyes]

Somebody I talked to yesterday told me they saw a robbin, But I haven't seen one out there. And today definitely didn't feel like Spring.
I'll be doing the same thing this week. Cleaning out the coop, getting rid of all the bedding and putting new in.
Twice a year, spring and fall.
I gave once a year a try, but that was too brutal! Can't do that.

 

[growanstede]

Somebody I talked to yesterday told me they saw a robbin, But I haven't seen one out there. And today definitely didn't feel like Spring.
I'll be doing the same thing this week. Cleaning out the coop, getting rid of all the bedding and putting new in.
Twice a year, spring and fall.
I gave once a year a try, but that was too brutal! Can't do that.

We have ten pens and I’m going to see if I should just sweep them out weekly or every other week. I feel like I’d use a little more bedding but save a ton of time and keep the mice from having so many hiding spots.

 

[Ilovemychicks08]

Ive seen three robins now
So maybe Spring is here?

I do deep litter and clean out once a year with five chickens.

 

[growanstede]

We have been doing deep litter too, and overall I like it. But it's so dusty and I think that with our volume of birds we're actually wasting a lot of feed. They drop it and don't bother picking it up. Always trying to tweak things

 

[Ilovemychicks08]

Have any of you ordered through Abendroth Hatchery in Waterloo Wisconsin?

 

[EagleEyes]

The new feed that I got, some of it's pretty fine and I have that feeder in the run which is sand and I could see that this feed was mixing with the sand so I cut a 2 foot by 3 foot board made kind of 2 inch rail around it and put it under the feeder to see how much was going on the ground. And I see it on the board now. But they're gonna have to eat it off the board or go hungry.
Having said that, they have the regular feeder in the coop so they won't starve to death