Montana

[CityslickerHomestead]

View attachment 2018539View attachment 2018540View attachment 2018541 I'm East of Billings with a plot in Lockwood near the interstate. Makes me easy to find when folks come buy chicks!

That’s a big dog! Mastiff?

I also have work in Lockwood in the industrial area. Groundwater remediation from the old Dyce Chemical.

I saw you sell Marans and Cream Legbars! Coincidently the breeds I was looking to add since they lay the colors I’m looking for. My Welsummers lay lighter speckled eggs, and my EE lays green eggs. The rest are white, brown, and cream.

I’d much prefer to buy locally from an expert than from the kids cashiering at Shipton’s. Nothing wrong with the kids, they just aren’t able to answer all my questions and honestly that’s ok. Also last year learning about and seeing the process of shipping chicks through the mail only to have them sit in packed cages at the store dying of pasty butt does not sit well with me.

I’m probably going to add a few more to my flock in a few months after I get my replacement coop built, so I’ll likely be reaching out to you to see if you have anything available at that time. If that works for you!

 

[ThunderHillChick]

I am also after the legbars! Very excited for when I get the OK to buy some chicks/more eggs. Bantam, would you sell hatching eggs? I could drive to get them... probably better than mailing them. I love watching them hatch!!

 

[Bantambird]

Yes, yes, I'm hatching right now! My legbars this week are sold, but there are marans available. I'm hatching every weekend!

 

[Bantambird]

I will be candling tommorow for Saturday's hatch, but I am also hatching (hopefully) heritage turkeys, of many colors.

 

[Uff Da]

It's been pretty mild this winter, barring that wierd stint in October that killed my hopes of extended apple processing. Near Livingston is considered one of the windiest places in America! Seen trucks blown right off the interstate and during windstorms traffic gets diverted for that reason. I'm lucky to have a few trees and the hay barn to the west blocking the worst of the wind, and I'm halfway down a hill so it's not so bad as all that, but the wind comes sweeping in from the river.
Near Billings we get the Chinook winds so it's easy livin' compared to pretty much anywhere else in Montana, besides Flathead valley, where it just stays dark, moist, and cool all year round....

We lived outside of Livingston for a bit. That darn wind spoiled many a travel plan!

Montana is actually the second windiest state after South Dakota. I hear people from other states boast about their wind and just shake my head, lol.

Were you by the 191 closure in Harlowton? I got a breaking news alert on my phone this Saturday saying “road closure due to fire.” And I was shocked we were already having fires. This doesn’t bode well for our actual upcoming fire season.


October made me think we were going to have another bad winter, so I put my snow tires on right away, and I haven’t really needed them other than today and yesterday.

I drive to Bozeman from Billings often for work, and have had to cut through Livingston a couple of times on those really windy days. The scariest time for me though was the first winter after I moved to Billings from sunny Southern California. I was driving in the dark back to the office from Bozeman when is started snowing and blowing, somewhere between Big Timber and Reedpoint, and all these truckers were speeding past me in the passing lane while I’m white-knuckling it in the driving lane. Every time a semi-truck sped by they kicked up snow and I experienced my first white-outs. I was shrieking to my colleague sitting in the passenger seat “Why is this happening? What is going on? Why did I move to Montana?”

Nope, just outside of Townsend. Confederate Gulch burned a bit.

I am 6th generation Montanan myself, but my husband is from Mexico. He's taken to the winter roads pretty well, because he hauls hay/straw/grain all winter and it was either learn how to drive well over all our winter passes, or lose his job!

 

[SwansonHomestead]

Hello Montana!! I’m in the beautiful Bitterroot Valley! Brand new to chicken rearing and BYC, so glad to see others from Montana here too!!

I'm in the Bitterroot too! It's so cool to see all the chicken lovers around here. I'm in Corvallis and have the tiny farm in the middle of town lol

 

[Bantambird]

Seems to be lots more active poultry people in the Western half than the Eastern half of the state.

 

[CBorden77]

Hi everyone! I am loving all the pics of winter across the state. Def a milder winter - at least so far up here in Libby. That wind storm knocked out a couple trees on my property and we were without power for 21 hours. Thankfully, it was a warmer night and day, so we did just fine. I find it amusing when my Florida and Texas family get so concerned that temps “could” get below zero here... Anyway, my three ladies’ laying has slowed to nearly nothing. I don’t heat or light the coop, so I expected laying to slow considerably. Still, I am thinking about pullets to add to my little clucker clique. Researching what I need to do, breeds, coop, integration... all that.
*attaching a pic of my “happy place” - where I go every morning for my daily walk. I swear - there is no way to take a bad pic in this state!

 

[CityslickerHomestead]

The forecast never has snow in it, yet here I wake up to fresh snow. I really hope my road has not drifted over again...

 

[Bantambird]

I feel lucky that so far, when it snows there's no wind, but when it melts that's when the wind kicks up. Small favors, lol! I hate when we have wind and snow.........