Calling all West-River South Dakotans

[SouthDakotan]

Love, love, love all the information about the swaps and selling poultry/eggs!

OH- Hi everyone! I just joined BYC this last week and I'm a west river girl - just to the northwest of RC a couple miles. It's nice to see some of you that are so close and nice to see those that aren't too!

We are in the process of building a coop and I'm starting to think it's going to be built better than our house! My husband tells me it's for "your chickens" but I'm thinking he wants the best for OUR feathered babies!

I am so green to this whole "chicken thing"...anyone have any words of advice to just throw out there at the top of your head?

Welcome to BYC and "West River thread" Chickengirl73! My only advise is build for the winter needs. Think of watering in winter & feeding in winter, as well as light issues for your birds, in winter. That's when the real issues appear. More efforts by predators to get your birds & you fighting the frozen egg issues, and the reduction in eggs due to lack of sunlight. So as long as you plan out ways to address winter issues --- as you build -- you will be ahead of the 8ball in the end & will enjoy it even more!

One gal in Madison area has a cool system to help keep her girls warm. She has a passive solar "Pop can" collector on the side of her hen house! Just warms their insulated hen house a bit more and also she has south facing windows. I'm looking at using as much passive solar as possible, even building my coop to mimic a "hot house" in some ways. That way the girls get more of the low light we get in winter. We're also looking at the solar collectors to add heat as well as planning on insulating the west wall. The north wall is of a standing structure, so that's not a problem. But the west wall gets the blunt of the winds in our case.

Anyhow, that's my 2.5 cents worth!!

 

[cheri n chicks]

I'm SO tickled to see so many of us from The Black Hills - Vale here !

 

[rsleghornchicki]

wow i thought no one posted on here anymore my gelding threw me hard and i landed on rocks and rolled a couple of feat. i have cut up knees a brused tailbone and a briused head and as soon as i landed i got back up and screamed im ok!

 

[Wheeler Farms Chickens]

Welcome Cheri and rsleghorn! Glad you found the thread.

 

[Jans Chickens]

Yikes rsleghornchicki! Hope you are OK!

 

[Jans Chickens]

Hi Cheri n Chicks. Isn't this the best time of the year to be in the Black Hills?

 

[snyder11]

Got some fencing for the chicks done. They should be moving outside within the next week. If anyone in the hills has some 5 week or older chickens they are looking to part with let me know. I just started with 4 black aussies and I'm looking to get a couple more to start my flock now that I somewhat know what I'm doing. Any suggestions for a water during the cold weather would let me know.

 

[SouthDakotan]

I'm SO tickled to see so many of us from The Black Hills - Vale here !

Welcome Cheri!

 

[SouthDakotan]

Got some fencing for the chicks done. They should be moving outside within the next week. If anyone in the hills has some 5 week or older chickens they are looking to part with let me know. I just started with 4 black aussies and I'm looking to get a couple more to start my flock now that I somewhat know what I'm doing. Any suggestions for a water during the cold weather would let me know.

I asked this question on "Extreme Cold" thread. And I had a great response from people who live in truly cold climates. One in Montana told me he has a heating platform, that you can buy for poultry waterers and then places a heating lamp over the top. This way it heats from the bottom and the top. Thought that might solve my problem of the freezing as mine would be water under a sheet of thick ice. Still the birds couldn't access it. He said he hasn't had any trouble since changing to that system. Also I had a gal in Madison, SD who uses a pop-can passive solar collector on the south side of her hen house. Her husband made the collector and they said it has been keeping their hen house toasty warm in the winter. This would reduce the problems of water freezing too.

Just a couple of ideas.

Anisah (east river)

 

[chickengirl73]

Hello all!!

Just got back on here finally after a month hiatus...we have been busy, busy, busy and I found out that I'm pregnant! Yikes!

Charlie - I don't know we are going to be sending any chickens to freezer camp...lol (that was pretty funny phrased that way)...our "girls" have become our daughters' pets so I don't know how that would work out. Unless, of course, we have a rooster - which we are trying to avoid in our close-knit neighborhood. Thanks for the advice on the book. Think they have it for a Kindle?

OH - and hello to the new Custer folks!

Jill