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Happyfarmwife

Happyfarmwife

In the Brooder
11 Years
Feb 6, 2008
58
9
39
SW Oregon
Hello everyone, I just found this forum today and joined.

I am married, have 4 children, two grown sons, and two young daughters still at home. We live in SW Oregon near the coast on a couple of acres.

We are building our chicken house as soon as the weather permits, and putting up fencing.

We aren't new to chickens. Have had them most of my adult life.

We raised laying hens when we lived in Alaska and sold the eggs.

There isn't anything like having a flock of chickens about the place.

I am looking forward to meeting you all.
 
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to the forum! I am sure you'll "dig" this place. We are all chicken crazy!
What was it like raising chicks in Alaska and what breeds did you own?
 
Thanks for the welcomes!

It was different raising chickens in Alaska for sure. We had a heated chicken house, we put the lights on a timer so we would continue to get eggs during the winter. We lived north of Fairbanks, where we got the short days in the winter. Depending on what time of year we might have 4 hours of daylight or more.

We had to use the heaters under the waterers as it was cold on the floor and with temps of 20 below zero or colder most of the winter, they would still freeze.

We had 52 laying hens. Ordered them from Murray-McMurray hatchery.

We had Black Austrolorps, Buff Orpingtons, New Hampshire reds, Barred rocks, Silver Laced Wyandottes, New Jersey white giants, one Brown Leghorn and Auracanas.

In the summer we raised 50 cornish cross for the freezer.

It was a challenge and everyone told us we would lose our birds to the preditors. But we didn't lose one bird. I had to throw rocks at a young bald eagle one day to get it to leave the fence post of the chicken yard. LOL

Mostly it was the long cold winters and keeping them inside a heated house that made it difficult. We also had a pair of Broadbreasted bronze turkeys, some Khaki Campbell ducks, and two white Chinese geese!

In the summer we let them run loose during the day, until it was gardening time. Then they stayed in a large yard we built. There was tons of chickweed there that we battled in the garden. So we threw lots of greens to them everyday.

Anyway, just goes to prove you shouldn't tell farm folks they CAN"T do something! LOL
 
I guess you can definately say those breeds are cold hardy, huh? What was the warmest it got there?
I would love to see pix of your chickens in AK!
 
Yes, they were cold hardy! That is why we chose most of them from the catalog.

In the summer it was beautiful. And hot! We could have temps in the 90s. Quite the contrast in the two seasons.

A joke up there was this: Does Alaska have 4 seasons?

Answer: Well of course! There is Winter, June, July and August. LOL more truth than fiction to that one!
 

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