Minnesota!

[Scott16475]

I'm lost - is Togo a bar or city? When I was living in CA it was a sub/bagel shop.



Scott - where do you buy your feed and supplies? I think we'll end up going to Fluegel's. I also need to see if I can find a cabinetmaker or wood shop for some shavings. This is going to be a trial and error thing...

Fluegel's in Rosemount is where I purchase most of my feed and supplies. I get the organic layer feed and it's really cheap, or at least it's cheaper than the price I asumed it would be. I get pine shavings in a large bag (I can't remember the size) as well as the oyster shells from Fleet Farm in Lakeville. A 25lb pag of shells at FF is less than $9 and if my memory serves me correctly, the bag shavings is around $7. With that said, I crushed up and baked my first round of egg shells this morning and fed it to them. I crushed them into very small pieces so I hope they don't figure out what it is. My wife now has me worried. HA.

Fluegel's is also where I order my chicks who they in turn, order from Hoover's Hatchery.

 

[Scott16475]

Togo is an old town site. It has taken on mythical proportions after the geographic studies of the late 80's. It was discovered Togo is in the exact center of the universe. Everything revolves or originated in Togo.

The remains of Togo are in the far north eastern corner of Itasca County. All the buildings in Togo are private use now, ( all 3 of them) with the exception of the Togo bar. The bar is at the intersection of Hwy 65 and Hwy 1. It has undergone a few name changes in the last few years, but it is still there, or was last time I was up there. I happen to be one of the lucky ones and own property on a lake near Togo. It is exactly 10 miles to the bar from my door step. However, some of that is private driveway. I have a very long driveway, it is exactly 2 beers long. You can tell my driveway by the barrel full of beer bottles at the intersection with the county road.

I find it easier to go to TSC for shavings than collecting from someone. I have a lot of my own shavings and I use them on chicks but it is a pain in the butt to gather and clean them. In a pinch I have ran a board through my planer for shavings for nest boxes and that works because I get longer thinner shavings.


EJB makes a good point, once the weather gets nice it will be hard for all of us to get together. I am wondering if we should do "area" gatherings. Maybe on a week night, roughly dividing the state into areas and trying to meet each other that way. Maybe we could work on a gathering for everyone next winter at a more central location.


It would be nice to have a directory of all of us, are general location and what type of birds we have. Maybe a facebook or Yahoo groups things that is free and has places to save info. I do not know if we can do that on BYC. If anyone knows how, they should do it...LOL


I was also wondering about making pins that say BYC Minnesota or something on them so if we go to auctions or swaps we would know who each other is..



BTW if there is a meeting in Duluth I would most likely go unless that horses rear Ralphie is the MC.



Thanks for the offer EJB, but I do not do crowds or center of attention well anymore.

Let's see, I first confused people by writing 'Toga' instead of 'Togo' and then I assumed you were talking about the Togo in...Africa(??) so that's why I made reference to it being warm. Clearly I'm an expert at confusing the masses so for now, I'l just sit quietly in the corner and I'll show up wherever you tell me to go.

 

[duluthralphie]

Fluegel's in Rosemount is where I purchase most of my feed and supplies. I get the organic layer feed and it's really cheap, or at least it's cheaper than the price I asumed it would be. I get pine shavings in a large bag (I can't remember the size) as well as the oyster shells from Fleet Farm in Lakeville. A 25lb pag of shells at FF is less than $9 and if my memory serves me correctly, the bag shavings is around $7. With that said, I crushed up and baked my first round of egg shells this morning and fed it to them. I crushed them into very small pieces so I hope they don't figure out what it is. My wife now has me worried. HA.

I most likely do my egg shells wrong. I simply let them dry and crush them before feeding them back. My grandparents and parents did this and never had a real egg eating problem.

I think the chickens are too stupid to know a broken egg was once a whole egg. After all they forget over night what snow is.

I get my shavings at Tractor Supply Company, if you have one close, I have gotten them at FF but they were more money and I thought dustier.

 

[Scott16475]

I most likely do my egg shells wrong. I simply let them dry and crush them before feeding them back. My grandparents and parents did this and never had a real egg eating problem.

I think the chickens are too stupid to know a broken egg was once a whole egg. After all they forget over night what snow is.

I get my shavings at Tractor Supply Company, if you have one close, I have gotten them at FF but they were more money and I thought dustier.

Thanks for the tip, duluthralphie. There's one not too far from me in Inver Grove Heights.

 

[Scott16475]

Profile pic has been updated to now include actual chickens rather than a dog. This is 'backyard chickens' after all. Attached are a few pics taken this morning of the girls and the coop.

 

[duluthralphie]

What breed are they?

I like your coop. I need several small coops like that to separate mine. I am going to do something different, but I am not sure what.

 

[Scott16475]

When my wife and I first started talking about owning chickens, I had the idea of fencing the girls off to the back half of the backyard and once the coop was brought home and the hens were old enough to go outside to their home, fencing them off become one of those ideas that was forgotten about due to a lack of time. We have 6 vegetable gardens in the backyard and as the girls got bigger, it didn't take long to remember that long forgotten thought of fencing off the girls. Although there are rabbit fences around each garden, the hens found a way to rip off the leaves of the veggies that were growing through the fences. We also grow pounds and pounds of potatoes via potato towers and if you grow potatoes, you know they are ready to be dug up once the 'branches' have browned and died. Well, thanks to the eating habits of chickens, the branches died way earlier than they were supposed to so our potato crop last summer wasn't as successful as they normally are. My wife and I built a fence in a matter of an hour and on very rare occasions, we will let them roam the entire backyard (like now when there's nothing growing and everything is snow covered). It's a difference between night and day with the back half and the front half of the yard. Not a blade of grass back where the chickens roam and thick green grass where they don't.

Oh, and another reason we quickly built that fence....chickens poop a lot!

 

[starbuck123]

Thank you both for the info - looks like a trip to a few places are in order! I was considering making my own organic feed but if the price is right... k-i-s-s (keep it simple stupid!). Besides, I'd rather support a local co.

I like your coop. Ours is similar, almost the same layout. We're not handy so had one built by red rooster coops. It's cute but I'm still bummed it has to be in the garage...

We're planning a garden so thanks for the reminder to fence that off as well, as they will be allowed out in the yard when we're here to supervise.

Anyway, looks great!

 

[Scott16475]

What breed are they?

I like your coop. I need several small coops like that to separate mine. I am going to do something different, but I am not sure what.

They are four Black Australorps. We have 2 Silver Laced, 2 RIR's, and 2 Barred Rocks chicks that are to be delivered on March 2nd. You can't tell by this picture but the coop is large enough to hold 14 hens and even though we ordered 6 new chicks bringing our total to 10, ten is the most I want to own. I'm also expecting a loss or two from the new chicks as we lost one chick last spring from natual causes and from everything I read it's difficult to bring in a new set of chicks into an already established group. I keep hearing to expect a loss or two due to bullying from the other chicks.

I hope that doesn't happen but I'm already figuring in the end, we'll have 7 or 8 chickens rather than the full 10.

 

[Scott16475]

Thank you both for the info - looks like a trip to a few places are in order! I like your coop. Ours is similar, almost the same layout. We're not handy so had one built by red rooster coops. It's cute but I'm still bummed it has to be in the garage...

Anyway, looks great!

The roof is clear so they get plenty of light during the day. I have a light on early in the morning and again in the evening to extend the days during the winter and because the roof is clear, in the darkness of night, comes this bright light aiming up to the heavens from inside the coop. It actually looks pretty cool.