Alaska Chicken Lover's Soup for the Cold!!

[arctic fowl]

Thanks for the quick reply. I haven't figured out what I will use as an enclosure yet. In summer we just have a glorified dog house, but I am assuming that in the winter I will need to have an insulated house for them to go to. Right now they never want to be inside. I have them in my greenhouse with a heat lamp at night, but in the morning they cheep and whine until I let them out. Even this morning when it was pretty chilly. I already have them swimming in a little pool. I guess I have been lucky that they haven't gotten too cold and died! I am not sure I can stop now, they love it and are so much fun to watch.
We haven't really settled on a winter enclosure. Do you have any advice? I could ask you a million questions so let me know when enough is enough. My family says I am duck obsessed. Which is probably true.

Thanks,
Danielle

 

[BirdBrain]

Welcome Danielle!!

I have Muscovy ducks and they did well over the winter. We have an insulated but not heated coop for them. If I lived where you do, I think I would put in some type of heater for when it drops below -15 or -20. You can tell by their behavior usually how they are doing. Try to line up some cheap mold-free straw to have on hand. After a snow I would shake out a layer of straw for them to sit around on since they usually preferred to be outside.

Water and feed go outside the coop, so plan a sheltered area for that. Make the pop door big enough to crawl out of incase you get locked in.

 

[PaulaJoAnne]

And a good waterer for winter for ducks, is one that they can only get their heads into. That prevents the foot popsicles.

 

[PaulaJoAnne]

Hey ya'all!
We have a turkey hen for sale!
PM me for info.

 

[PandoraTaylor]

Sorry for my absence there was so much going on................

My DH has been going through some medical issues; the first question from the doctor was "does anyone in your family have stomach cancer?" well that will explain everything and nothing.....

As my father and DH's mother both died of Cancer, we were extremely concerned. I was a

wreck

DH was just the greatest support and it should have been the other way around

(lol). I am the worrier, he takes everything as it comes, cool as a cucumber!

We have to travel 134 miles round trip (with no vehicle) to have the tests done and they couldn't schedule them all the same day.

It has taken several months to get all the tests and results, but he doesn't have Cancer. Thank God and Friends.

There have been many other family issues, deaths and drama....legal and civil.....

So I have missed you all terribly and am happy to report:

I have 31 Columbian Rock eggs in the incubator hatchdate June 30th.

then I will be hatching some Barred Rock eggs, and I am continuing to work on my CR project.

edited to add:
Candling says that we have movement.......so should have a good hatch on the 30th!


Edited to Say:

we now have 6 colunbian rock chicks in the incubator! still have 10 eggs to go.......Thanks to temp fluxations it may be another 3 days before we give up on them.......

 

[WestfarthingHomestead]

Chugiak/Birchwood/Peter's Creek - are these neighborhoods exhempt from the Municipality of Anchorage's regulations on chickens and goats? We have the luxory of choosing to live wherever we want now and I like the Chugiak area, but only if I can keep a bunch of chickens and a couple of Nigerian Dwarf Goats!

On a related question,

how much property is enough to keep the noise and stink away from the neighbors? We're looking at a place that's about 2 and a half acres. We want about 30 chickens and a couple of goats who, of course, will have kids every spring too. (The kids will then be sold.) Of course, we'll maintain our animals' shelters and runs daily, but how far away from our neighbors should are they be?

What about geese, ducks, and guinea fowl in the Chugiak area?

Thanks!

 

[wingsofglory]

A lot depends on the terrain of hills, meadows, low areas, etc, number of trees and bushes, and the layout of the neighborhood.

Some neighborhoods have square lots which keeps some distance between houses; some have the long skinny lots which is too little room between the houses (where ten acres have been divided into four long skinny lots with each having equal narrow street frontage - they are two and a quarter acres). Some are subdivisions with irregular shaped lots along a curving road which seems to work.

I think your plan is modest and would work on the two and half acreage. A lot depends on the siting of the neighbor's houses over the areas you put the birds and goats.

Your fencing will be a major expense. Mostly to keep neighbor's dogs out, bearproofing everything, and keeping the goats in.

A brown bear tore the door off my coop last week, broke it in half, and was standing up tearing the wall out when I yelled at him leaning out my house door. He was very big (and very small ears) and not shy or afraid at all. After he thought about it, he left. 7 am in the morning. Chickens all ok and I pieced the coop back together, and am figuring out how to put electric wire around it. An hour ago, a neighbor emailed me a black bear just ran through her yard.

Something I've reconsidered: I've been fretting about clearing the acre of bushes around the house and putting in a lawn. Well, the chickens LOVE the bushes - they won't go in the clear areas. Its the bushes or under the deck for the day. The bushes are from one foot to three feet high with a line of tall cottonwoods and spruce down the middle. Their favorite place. They won't go in the woods either. The moose have kept the bushes trimmed to this height for years. If it was lawn, the hawks would see the chickens better.

When I was looking for property, I crossed two neighborhoods off my list because when I got out of the car, ten or more dogs all around at different houses started barking and howling at me. In one, a pack of loose dogs materilized out of the neighborhood to follow me around, barking madly all the while.

Good luck househunting. I think its fun. You get to drive down lots of roads you wouldn't otherwise have seen.

A lot of the "rules" about chickens and goats would be in the subdivision "covenants" and will vary throughout the area, so difficult to make a general statement. To keep smell down, might consider not having the billy, but borrowing someone's when necessary, or taking your does to the billy.

 

[Alaska animal lover]

Pandora, I'm so glad he doesn't have cancer!
Are any of you here interested in being on the Farm and Food group we have on Facebook? We're up over 200 members now and the wealth of info there is priceless. I know when things first started there was a lot of conflicts, but everyone gets along now(for the most part) and no one is blocking anyone, or that kind of stuff.
If you are interested, friend me, and drop me a note with your user name here so I know who you are.

You can unfriend me after I add you to the group! Just look for Aimee Beech on FB.

 

[Mrs MIA]

I know someone who has a bunch of chickens, turkeys, ducks, geese, and 3 pigs in Chugiak.

 

[WestfarthingHomestead]

Cool!