Crossing the Divide with my Chickens

[Chicken D's mom]

I'm moving next week with my chickens from Nebraska to Utah. My friend who is driving the Semi hauling my stuff was concerned about Chickens going over the mountain passes. Does anybody know what effect altitude changes will have on chickens? I only have 3 and they will be in cages in the back of my Blazer. We will be going slow because I will be following a Semi. I think they will be fine, but my friend is not so sure.

Any advice?

 

[Randy]

I have no idea but it's an interesting question. I will be following the thread to find out. Your probably right though. After all, the settlers make it over the mountains and out west with thier chickens.

 

[Cetawin]

Oh I can answer your questions....they will be fine and have no issue with the passes or elevation. I just moved (March 28th) 19 chickens and 11 ducks from Oregon to Kentucky, through 2 snowstorms, 1 whiteout and torrential rain and hail. I had them in small coops and dog crates in the back of a 26' U-Haul, I stopped every 3 - 4 to check their waterers and feed and put a battery operated fan back there to circulate air between stops. They also had a couple LED lights back there so they were not in total darkness while moving. They got extra straw at night to bed down in and they had no trouble going from elevations around 1200 ft - 6000 ft back down to less than a 1000 ft. The 43 hour trip took us 7 days with all the overnighters we had to pull because of storms. They lost a few ounces (the most anyone lost was 1 duck lost 5 ounces). I took 20 gallons of water with me from home, 200 lbs of food (100 for chickens and 100 for ducks), they drank a lot on the trip and ate regularly just not as much as usual and they all laid throughout the entire trip.


This is how they traveled and what they traveled through:

The small coops on either side were double deckers, I add a floor before we left and put 4 - 5 birds on the top and 4 - 5 on the bottom, they had plenty of room to move around and stand up...as you can see by my rooster in the top of this one...he is my tallest bird so the roof of his was slanted by added 6" - 4" on the top of the original straight roofline. Food was stored on top of his coop so that it did not shift and stayed against the wall of the u-haul. My 5 Ancona ducks were in large dog crate on the floor beside the small coop. A piece of plywood was on top of their crate and a large lawn and leaf garbage bag full of straw sat on the plywood.

In this one there were 10 birds with 2 dog crates strapped down on top which held my Golden Welsh Harlequin ducks (6 of them). The 2 10 gallong military water cans were on top of that coop as well and were strapped down and to the side of the u-haul. My king-size mattress ontop of everyone kept the load from shifting whatsoever...no matter what terrain were in.

So, traveling with your babies in the blazer will be absolutely no trouble and you being right there will probably make the trip easier on them, radio on and etc.

This is what my babies went through...the milder of what they went through I should say

I would not recommend moving them as I did unless it was in the cooler weather...the heat would be too much for them but in the blazer with AC available they they would do just fine even in the warmer weather. So do not worry and have a safe trip!

 

[Cetawin]

PS sorry about the typos....these tiny laptop keys are a nightmare sometimes.

You and the birds will be fine...enjoy the trip and stay safe.

 

[Chicken D's mom]

Wow! That must of been quite a trip! I'm so glad you responded, cuz now I feel really confident my babies will make it just fine. I have dog crates that look exactly like yours (the black ones), with my two banty hens in one and my beloved Roo in the other. They seemed to settle right in. I'm having trouble finding a waterer that won't get knocked over or spill, is that a water bottle I see on the side of your Roo's cage? Is it rigged so they can drink? If so how did you do that?
I'm amazed that you had so many birds in one trip and lost no one! That's awesome. Must have been quite an adventure. Was there alot of nail biting? How are the chicken's hearing?....I bet it was really loud in the back of the truck during the hail storm!

I went ahead and put my chickens in the dog crates so I could clean and tear down their Tractor coop. It's extremly heavy and I hope we can get it in the semi, I built it myself and made it super strong, so I don't know if I can break it down small enough without destroying it. We might need to scramble to build a new coop when we get there.

My chickens will also be riding with my Chocolate lab, and my two of my cats. My old S10 Blazer lost its airconditioning a long time ago, but the weather is still pretty cool and we'll be going through Wyoming and may run into weather like you did. The chickens will be right behind me so they'll be able to see me and I can throw treats to them now and then.

My friends all laughed at me when I told them my chickens were going with me. They thought a nice chicken dinner before the trip would be much easier. I consider my chickens un-edible.

Anyway, thank you for your post, I enjoyed it and it puts me at ease.