Anyone on BYC in Montana?

[MTtroutwithwings]

I read alot of these postings but I've never seen anyone from the Montana area, to quote Pink Floyd,"is there anybody out there?"

Lori

 

[unionwirewoman]

Me too ! Of course I already knew you were (Your avatar ) !Probably not many other people though . I was born and somewhat raised here (visited my family every summer , moved back when I was 16 ) . Were you born in Montana ?

 

[MTtroutwithwings]

Hey unionwirewoman,
No, we relocated here in April of 2006 from Colo. but we love it here so far.

Country living is so much nicer that the city although you do learn to make adjustments. Like raising chickens! Never in my wildest dreams did I think I could get addicted to it. When I talk about it to the locals, they just stare at me with this look of, "Yeah, so what?" so to this point, I just keep it to myself or share it with BYC. Looks like you & I may be the only BYC members in MT. So what feathered friends do you fancy? I have a variation of pullets for eggs but got started originally with guineas, the local Murdochs sucked me into that and now I'm hooked! We drove through Kalispell last summer headed up to Columbia Falls, beautiful country up there too!

 

[unionwirewoman]

Well , I started 5 yrs ago w/ 2 banty brahmas and 1 RIR (still have them ) and now I have 3 RIR , 3 BR , 4 BR banties , 2 banty turkens (naked neck) , 1 silkie , 2 red stars , 2 brahma banties , and I ended up keeping 2 cornish broilers as an expirement on egg laying (we bought 45 meat birds to butcher last spring ) they are actually great layers and don't eat as much as the cornish x (the white ones ) . We're getting more meat birds this spring to butcher , and i'm going to cull a few that haven't been laying ( my two brahmas haven't laid for 2 yrs ) so I'm hoping to get some different breeds , polish maybe ? or I'd really love a white silkie . My silkie is sooo good at being broody . our hopes are to expand our coop and section it off to hatch chicks out .

What part of Colorado ? I lived in Aurora for 10 yrs . Too funny that you mentioned Murdochs !! All of the chickens I have , I bought from there , except 1 RIR that was given to me .

If your ever in the area again , let me know ! would love to meet ya !

 

[MTtroutwithwings]

Yeah, Murdoch's is where I get all of my supplies too. The pair of guineas we got are unfortunately gone, thanks to the ranch hand dogs next door, lost them just after thanksgiving because they were completely free range, the dogs had access to their side of coop. My chickens, which came later from McMurray Hatchery, were completely protected on the other side. I plan to try getting a doz. guinea eggs and hatching them this time, combination of sticking some under the chickens and placing the rest in a mini bator I have on order. We'll see which one does a better job. My DH is not at all happy at the idea of having more than 2 more guineas again so if I end up with extras, you want them? I know the hatching rate is unpredictable as there are no guarantees on the fertility of each egg but my boys really want to try it. DH is the one who encouraged me to get into this but forgetting that if I find something I like, I would go full tilt with it, giving it a 100% of my efforts, he has no one to blame but himself!
We lived in Denver. My DH was a native living there all his life (52 yrs) until we moved here, I moved there back in 1981 from my hometown of Tucson and meet him shortly thereafter. We had our twin boys Dec. of 2000 (very late start at parenting) and decided Denver was not a good (or safe) place to raise them so we looked around for a few years and found this place on the internet! We bought our 7 acre plot/property from Seiben Ranch Company, you familiar with them? John Baucus is the owner, his brother, Max, I'm sure you know him. It was his (John's) dogs that killed my Guineas!

Did you get any of this cold front over the weekend? It's was -21 this morning so I ran out to check the girls, they have 2 heat lamps & deep litter and did fine but 4 of 6 eggs they laid since my last check yesterday at 2:30 were frozen. Better eggs than chickens! They're water was frozen too so I put they're outdoor heated bowl back in the coop until it warms back up. Well this was a lengthy one, sorry I can talk alot!

If we do get extra Guineas and you want them, we can deliver! Then we could meet! Any excuse for a road trip!