I am still debating.....Doms or RIR RCs?

[Illia]

Here's a vote over here for RC Rhode Island Reds.

I'm sorry but McGraws are overrated, and all the more for people to turn away from Araucanas. I've known, bred, and owned plenty fat Araucanas, and they are the best. Intelligent, excellent free rangers, come in many colors, most unrecognized, have a LOT of meat for that little body, and of course, lay awesome blue eggs. Plus they're tufted.

ETA - the best tasting of all the breeds I've tried too.

 

[punky rooster]

Quote:
I'd think its tough to tell if they're over rated when you've never tried any. Personaly, I like both.
Just sayin'

 

[phasianidae]

Quote:
I'd think its tough to tell if they're over rated when you've never tried any. Personaly, I like both.
Just sayin'

x2

 

[Rare Feathers Farm]

Well I have decided to order three different breeds--GASP (from a hatchery!)

I'll raise them, house them all together and see which ones survive/thrive as free range & during our super cold winters....

I'll eat the extra roosters, sell any with horrible flaws and narrow it down to one breed, eventually. Sort of like my own Darwin experiment, LOL

Then I'll start gathering better stock. No sense in blowing a ton of money on awesome birds if they can't/won't survive.

So Buckeyes, Doms and Chanteclers are on my list for next spring....I need another coop!

 

[punky rooster]

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Nice choices!

All of the above should fare very well in cold winters. My Buckeyes act don't mind the cold weather at all. . . great birds.
Mitch

 

[Rare Feathers Farm]

Quote:
Nice choices!

All of the above should fare very well in cold winters. My Buckeyes act don't mind the cold weather at all. . . great birds.
Mitch

Awesome. I also have Orloffs which if they matured faster--would be ideal....but unfortunately, it takes 7-9 months before they are laying or crowing....(even sexable)....so they wouldn't be very economical....I'm hoping that some of these will mature a little faster....

 

[mother o' chicks72]

I love my Dom girl, she's pretty sweet.

 

[Yellow House Farm]

Hmmm...just puttin' this out there, but, in Washington, you shouldn't be having die off from the cold. If you have experienced it, it would be more of a statement about the extreme weakness of whatever particular strain you had, and would not be a statement about the validity of a breed. Also, if you get hatchery birds with the intention of upgrading to quality stock--going back to the strain issue-the success or failure of the one does not settle the potential success or failure of the other. All of the breeds mentioned so far, assuming you procure healthy birds, should shrug at a WA winter.

 

[Rare Feathers Farm]

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I live in North Central Washington (Loup Loup Pass to be exact)--in the foothills of the Cascade Mountains. We are at almost 3,000' elevation, 40 miles from the Canadian border (as the crow flies). We get months of well below zero temperatures and the occasional -20 or lower with the wind. We also get anywhere from four to five feet of snow here during the winters.

Since insulating my coop, I have only lost a few birds to the cold and that was because their feet got so badly frostbitten. (Muscovy, bantam Faverolle, Light Sussex)...none of them were hatchery birds and had to be culled.

Most of the birds I have are genetically weak in some way or another because the gene pool is quite shallow, unfortunately. That said, I have never lost a Crevecoeur to the weather, which is surprising...but I have lost bantam Houdan, LF (white) Houdan, bantam Faverolle and had others receive frostbite damage to their combs.

Here's one of our horses (she's 16.2h):

Bottom of our driveway:

Pasture gate:

Snow to the bottom of the windows:

DH's car:

The flip side of that is our heat. We get above 100 degree temps for long stretches during the summer and I lost all of my LF Faverolles in one week. They had fans and lots of shade (and water) but they couldn't survive. I have had no trouble with my Sussex or LF Cochins in the heat though...so who knows? It's sad but only the strong survive up here and those who don't aren't reproduced any further because they are dead.

 

[Rare Feathers Farm]

Oh and I do have lots of ventilation in my coop...I have a vented overhang, two side vents, two windows that open and the door I can leave open if it's not too windy. Most of the time, our humidity (year round) is around 20-25%. However on occasion, we get lots of wet snow and freezing fog which seems to hurt the birds the most.

I even went so far as to build ramps that brush most of the snow & moisture off their feet as they are entering the coop in an effort to keep them drier.

These were made with "boot-scraping" mats:

Their runs are 6" deep sand to help them drain when it does rain.

The summertime--they have shade from a huge tree and the sun moves around the coop so each breed has periods of shade from the coop and the tree, all day:

My small coop is not insulated but has lots of ventilation, as well:

The eaves are all open (all four sides) and the front of the coop also has some screen on it for the summers but it will be covered with plastic during the winter: