Montana

[karlamaria]

Not sure how old your chickens are, but they will molt unless you are trying to stop them with the light. I opted out of lighting my coop, my girls have a couple of good years of laying well and I did not want to stop the molt, and I wanted them to lay longer in there life then have them force lay with all the light. Funny thing was, out of my five birds, I got eggs from them all after they molted. It was a light molt, and with in 6 weeks everyone of them laid eggs. YEah some days only 2 out of 5 laid but hey that's over a dozen a week and fine as we have big breakfasts on the weekends

 

[Chick N Haus]

Our heat lamp is mostly for new chicks in the spring. We get 25 or so at a time. Of course we would use it if we needed it in a very bad cold snap emergency. I didn't mean you needed it like on all winter. We planned our coop and pens to raise a lot more chickens and we are using a deep litter method and did follow the recommendations to go for more ventillation. Our pens are way too big to wrap. That is what is so great about this forum, everybody has different sizes of operations, different methods and come from different construction experience. My husband was an instructor in a carpenter and millwright apprenticeship program. There is room for all methods, backgrounds and sizes of operations on this forum. I suggest you do what we did. Ask for opinions,learn from past coops we have had, read a lot of coop plans, design what fits you. There is no one perfect plan.

 

[montanachicks]

thanks for everyone's ideas. As for the window, it is a sliding one so all summer, it's been open, but can crack it in the winter if needed. Thinking we will go with the heat lamp suspended from the ceiling. Trial and error.... believe me, I will be keeping a close eye on them all winter so I know what's working best.

 

[Chick N Haus]

So, montanachicks, how many chickens do you have? What kind of chickens do you have? What brings you to Great Falls? My husband and I are newly retired. He is a millwright, firefighter and renewing his EMT. I am a RN with a background from ER and Employee Health. We are great grandparents. Tell us your story.

 

[Chicken Woman]

I second the chicken winter issues. We had some frostbite issues our first year w/ chickens. You really need to have them trained to go to their roosts before dusk, and have their feeding area covered from aerial predators. We have Bald Eagles (which I thought were regal until they stole some birds), hawks, huge crows, etc. I've found that our system takes care of the large land predators. LGD, guard dog, alert dog (3 separate dogs/breeds), large stock with horns, frequent gunfire in the range on-property, and meat-eating male (DH) 'marks' around the property. Bears, wolves and lions keep a wide birth, and coyotes haul butt through, going nowhere near the animals.

Our chickens have free reign of the property, but stick to the front 3 acres fairly religiously. I am going to have a tractor for my Silkies, but the laying flock is free-range for pest control/entertainment purposes.

We are located in a tight N/S valley outside Missoula. Wind is at a minimum, which is nice year round, but especially in winter. We have an artesian well and a large creek/springs nearby, so water isn't an issue for us. It really depends on your property location, water, terrain, etc. Pretty much every property has its own set of pro's and con's.

We really like the people outside of the cities in MT. They're generally polite, packing, and helpful. We enjoy the privacy outside of town, and ranching is something we look forward to teaching our kids. It's a very different life up here compared to how DH and I were raised in huge cities in South Western states.

As for frost bite I find it helps if you use vaseline on combs.waddles and feet about every 2 weeks. Keeps the moisture from attaching to them when they drink.

 

[9gerianMile]

As for frost bite I find it helps if you use vaseline on combs.waddles and feet about every 2 weeks. Keeps the moisture from attaching to them when they drink.

Oh thanks, we know that now... We don't have those issues anymore with our new system

 

[Chicken Woman]

Anyone near Billings ? We just passed ordinance for 6 hens. I have 16 and have had chickens here for 5 years.

 

[9gerianMile]

Congrats on getting that passed! That's exciting

I'm outside Missoula. They have the ordinance for 6 hens in town, too.

 

[karlamaria]

Anyone near Billings ? We just passed ordinance for 6 hens. I have 16 and have had chickens here for 5 years.

LOL that's like most people who are illegal and they finally pass ordinances. congrats

As for frost bite I find it helps if you use Vaseline on combs.waddles and feet about every 2 weeks. Keeps the moisture from attaching to them when they drink.

yikes, that would be horrible . if its that cold then I would definitely fix the coop up better and insulate.

Oh thanks, we know that now... We don't have those issues anymore with our new system

that's good, I can not imagine a poor animal out in that cold fighting not only the cold but frost bite
We are supposed to have real cold coming on this week, down to the low 50s and some places snow already. can you believe it I'm still getting tons of tomatoes. I am now dehydrating them. I have bags and bags frozen, and dehydrated, and given the neighbors a lot. still getting 10 tomato's a day on my vines. I must have done well lol.
Mamma has hatched out 6 chicks, doing great and all over the place. the other chickens eggs did not hatch out at all. she is a first time broody, maybe next time. any ways all is well here, going to start bringing the tin can heater into the coop and getting things winterized. will be wrapping the pen soon with clear plastic to keep out drafts and letting light in.
looks like I will be dehydrating a while, got 10 pounds of sweet non gmo corn to do, then carrots, then fruits. will be doing about 40 more pounds of tomatoes to. thank goodness I have 2 large dehydrators.
Hope your all doing well !

 

[9gerianMile]

Well we've already had below-freezing nights here... you're lucky you've dodged it so far! All our gardens here are in tuber-only mode

And it's pretty easy to imagine an animal fighting frostbite when you're new to chickens, build them an awesome coop, and then order day-old chicks in AUGUST >.< that right there is the thing I look back on and say "What on earth were we thinking????" We had no older hens to teach them that the coop was good, so they didn't like it one little bit. We ended up building them another coop that didn't have a ramp for that first winter. But, that's in the past. Now everyone loves the coop I'm going to build a new set up of breeding pens for my projects next year. They'll be insulated, too.