Michigan Thread - all are welcome!

[Nigellas]

Meal worms make for great treats and training aids. I've been buying the freeze-dried mealies at Lowes because they are so much cheaper than TSC or on-line.

Where at Lowes do they keep them? I can't picture it at all.

 

[SillyChicken]

Where at Lowes do they keep them? I can't picture it at all.

try the garden section where they have bird seed and feeders

 

[snowflake]

Starting to feel the effects of sleep deprivation. Getting up often at night to check the goat due to kid is making for a tired Stacy! Hopefully she doesn't go too overdue. I am just concerned about frozen kids if they don't get dried off pronto, so I am being a bit of a helicopter parent.

hope your baby comes soon, this is such a special time of yr, with all the new births

Sorry about the rough winter everyone's having. I've been quietly reading this thread - especially when I feel bad about the subzero temps & snow we've gotten in the Chicago area. It's nice to learn that people can survive in colder/snowier conditions & continue to have their sense of humor. This is our first winter with chickens & these forums have helped our flock survive.

Welcome, glad you had a good first winter, it was a rough one

Wow! Thank you for all of the advice so far.

yes on both accounts, I have removable roosts, with boards under, DH made them so they can slide out but I only do that spring and fall when I take them outside for a good wash, I have split open feed bags and put them on the board, much easier to clean even in winter when the poo is frozen. There should be a pic in my profile, also the the tractors, ours were made with 2x4s and pvc,covered with chicken wire, over hang bent out about a foot around the bottom to deter digging predators, we put a 4x4 coop made with plywood on the back, that made it rather heavy, I think I would make a tarp house instead, we don't use our tractors very much, free ranging is more fun. just fence off areas chickens are not welcome
there are some very nice tractors on the coop sight.
also yes to walk in every thing, makes life easier, a covered area in your run would allow all food and water outside yr round, that and poop boards under your roosts makes a nice clean coop
I do wish I had access to nest box's (2 should be enough for 8 hens) from the outside although they can get hot in summer and cold in winter?

 

[Opa]

Once again the weather is affecting what I can and can't do. Snowblowing yesterday, even with heavy gloves on, it felt like my fingers were going to fall off. A circulation problem has severely affected how much cold I am able to stand.

With the temperatures hovering below zero I think the birds are not getting any water until closer to noon. Hopefully the sun will warm things up and make being outside a little more bearable.

Dropping boards are probably one of the best improvements you can make for your coops. When I constructed mine I opted for using RFP (reinforced fiberglass panel). While a little pricey, about $26 for a 4x8 sheet, its durability and its ease of cleaning make it well worth the price.

I built two 4x4 frames and attached RFP to the bottom. The trays were then hung beneath the three 8' roosts by light weight chains with screw eyes. I remove about 5 gallons of droppings from the boards each week. That is a substantial amount that would have been on the floor. I would guess that between the birds being outside most of the day and the dropping boards only about 10% of their droppings wind up on the coop floor.

 

[fuzzybutt love]

My bator dropped a couple degrees in the night with the cold. Babies still ok????

 

[Maah]

My bator dropped a couple degrees in the night with the cold. Babies still ok????

It's possible they are all still just fine. It might delay the hatch date by a day or two. The only thing you can do it try to keep the temp & humidity maintained as best as you can and give it time. You just started this batch, so hold off on opening the bator or candling any of them at this point. Give it some time, especially if you're using a still air incubator.

IMO. Keeping my fingers crossed that you get some chicks from this hatch.

 

[SillyChicken]

when I used my bator upstairs in a room that had temp fluctuation (sun in window etc) i lost the eggs... I move the bator to the basement where it's cooler, and had better hatch rates. I assume it's because the bator was the only source of heat.

 

[RaZ]

Where at Lowes do they keep them? I can't picture it at all.

Should be on the shelf above the bird food bags. The garden area inside where the bird feeders are.

 

[zndzant]

As a newbie, I'm following the progress posts from those of you who are hatching eggs. That sounds like it's quite tricky. I don't know if I would try it.

 

[BattleFires]

I'm nervous about hatching eggs too. I want to get some Silver Appleyard ducks but I would have to order them. I'm really hesitant to ship ducklings even though a lot of people have had good experiences. My sister-in-law has offered to hatch some under her chickens but I don't know how the chicken would react to that. She has Icelandics.