Maine

[My6Chicks]

Live in Yarmouth and we have 6 - 6 month old hens. Our coop is uninsulated, and as my wife says, "they're birds". We'll see if a light will help regulate their egg laying during the winter months. They are a blast...

 

[spook]

I'm here in the Oxford area and we do not insulate or heat our coop. If I do anything its cardboard on the ceiling to keep the heat down for the birds. Here the power can go off for 20 min or 5 days. If your birds are used to the lights for instance for heating, then you will probably lose the flock from not having enough feathers to keep them warm. (my opinion) Also I let my birds out all winter, keeps them healthy a breeder once told me. They have the option to go in, eat snow or hang out in the sunshine(when we get it).
Now, I do have heated waterers so that I can be lazy in the AM and I don't have to roll out of bed all that early!

 

[TimG]

My chickens will not walk on snow if given any choice. Even when they see greenish ground on the other side of the snow, they won't venture across.

 

[TimG]

I've got two broody hens that I think may be sitting on duds. Anybody in Southern Maine have a few recently hatched chicks they would part with so I could try to break these hens of their broodiness? Or, some that are about to hatch?

Thanks,
Tim

 

[nuchickontheblock]

Hi folks,
we are in south portland. when would be a good time to start with some indoor lighting in the coop? We are starting to get shorter days, and I would like to add a light bulb for about 12 hours daily as my girls have just started laying on a regular basis. I'd hate to disrupt that now. Also, when should I think about closing up the coop to keep any heat inside. We have a ramp from the coop that goes to an enclosed pen that we would leave open, but we have a large area of the top side that opens for air/light that we have had open for most days since we started with our chickens in May. Just started to close it during the rainy spell we've had lately. This is our first season and it's starting to hit the 40's-low 50's at night. Our coop in uninsulated 3 x 6 with 3 bantam ameraucanas.

Thanks for any advise.

 

[Damummis]

Never used a light unless they are babies. Then only till about 7-8 weeks.

 

[TimG]

Quote:
To encourage year-round laying, you should aim for about 14 hours of light. So, you should start soon!

Unless it's windy, it doesn't really matter whether you close up the coop. And, wind doesn't really become an issue until it is below freezing, not that you should wait that long but ventilation is important.

 

[Eglyntine]

I hope you all do not mind me lurking over your thread. I grew up in Maine near Farmington in a little town called New Sharon. Now I am currently living in Reno, NV but I will always be a Mainer until my dying day. I grew up working on dairy farms and of course we had our own little home farm with tons-o-chickens, geese, goats, cats, dogs, turkeys, you name it. Over the years after moving away from Maine I have always wanted to get back to that lifestyle and about 4 months ago I finally got my chickens back.

My poor husband, I went from "Honey can I have a few chickens?" to having 54 of them now. Mostly babies still but 18 of them are adult ladies and I have a Silkie Rooster that a lady friend gave me to save him from her flock.

I of course post over on the Nevada thread but I have been lurking over your thread almost since the beginning of registering with this site. We do not get the winters here anything like they have in Maine but when you have ppl that are used to 100 degree weather and it drops down in the teens, they feel the cold. I have some inside giggles a lot here about how ppl react to the winter months just because of growing up in Maine.

As for my chickens, it really is doing me a wealth of good seeing your comments about winter maintenance of your birds. I am almost finished with my coop and I pretty much built it the same way we had ours in Maine done years and years ago but after reading all of this info about chickens (that we did not have 20+ years ago) I really have started second guessing myself on the raising of my birds. My husband was really getting persistent about insulating and putting in lights in the coop, getting heaters, etc. but I kept telling him, I never remember doing any of that growing up and as a lot of you know -25 from about Jan-April is the norm in the North-Eastern part of the state. Our chicken house used to be our haven as kids when were playing out in the snow during the winter because it was always so warm in there. We never insulated, we did not even have electricity run out to the coop so we definitely did not have lights or heaters in there and it always stayed super warm and we always had a ton of eggs all winter long. Anyway, I just wanted to stop by and say Thank you for the reassurance that I am not crazy (well that might still be up for debate) and I still remember how to raise a chicken.

 

[buckabucka]

Welcome to the Maine thread, Eglyntine.

I get all my feed in New Sharon at White Water Farm. While I am in Fairfield, I am very close to the Norridgewock line, so New Sharon is fairly convenient and the feed prices and selection are good. This will be our first winter with chickens, and while we did insulate the coop, we do not plan on heat or light out there.
Glad to hear you are finally back to raising chickens!

Robin

 

[NewEnglandChick]

Welcome Eglyntine!! Even though I'm a coastal Maine girl myself, I went to college at UMF (all 4 years!!) and am very familiar with that area!

Our coop is not insulated (though here on the coast the winters aren't nearly as dramatic as the western part of the state!) but it does dip down into the singe digts frequently during the winter. We do have underground power to our coop (mostly for my comfort as I'm out there a lot when it's dark) but the lights I have are the "heat lamps" that I use to keep the chicks warm when they're little. They're on a timer to come on in the late afternoon and stay on through most of the evening/into the night, then shut off, and then turn back on in the early morning. I keep them all above the laying boxes, but again - just to make my job of egg-hunting easier!!

I have found that a very thick layer of shavings built up from the fall months (added to a little bit each month) insulates and keeps the place quite warm during the winter. We certainly don't have heat...although I've contemplated those electric dog bowls on a couple occasions when the water does freeze (but this doesn't happen too often), but everybody seems comfortable and I do get eggs through most of the winter from all my girls. I have found that the winters with more snow are easier on the girls - maybe the snow helps keep the coop insulated? We don't get nearly as much "footage" of snow as the mountains, and when it's bitterly cold and there's not as much snow the coop does seem colder...perhaps that plays a role? I don't know...but I'm sure you don't have to worry about snow in Reno!