need advice from midwesterners

[kellieetal]

I'm moving to Southern Illinois (about an hour from St. Louis, MO) in the spring. I'm coming from Seattle area, where our summers and winters are both relatively mild/protected by a heavily treed hillside. Where we're going, I've google mapped and seen the satellite views and it's flat (ick) with hardly any trees around except for what will be OUR property, which is fairly well treed. The surrounding properties are apparently mainly cornfields--yay. (I'm envisioning snakes and rodents aak--not happy about leaving my current home in exchange for THAT.) So...I'm looking into where to situate our chicken coop on our property and how to orient it so as to avoid the suffocating, sticky heat in the mid summer and the coldest winter winds and take best advantage of the sun's winter/summer angles. Does anyone from that region know to what degree the sun travels in an arc directly over head in summer, or does it never quite reach DIRECTLY overhead but instead peaking at an angle slightly south of overhead? I'm wondering if I can manipulate the position of the roof's overhang and the location of the windows to provide a warming sunlight in winter and a cooling shade in summer. Thoughts from anyone who knows that region's conditions? (please and thank you)

 

[ivan3]

Being displaced from Cascadia onto the nondescript, stable interior craton of the U.S. (Southern Illinois - from Rend Lake- good fishing - South is relatively mild in the winter). Here is a Flash tool that should give you a quick fix on sun angle/shadows (set the latitude of home-to-be and run the animation). http://astro.unl.edu/naap/motion3/animations/sunmotions.swf

Summers? Plenty of fresh water and box fans for the birds (moving air is better than `none').

Just try to stay hydrated. It is nearly impossible for a hydromanic to harm his or herself in that balmy clime as the loss from sweating often outpaces even the most fervent rate of consumption.

 

[RaspyRoosterFarms]

As far as the rats and snakes, Get a good chicken proof bait box and don't leave stuff laying around to make homes for snakes, But you should be fine for anything else. As long as the chickens aren't boxed in summer and don't have a draft in winter they'll be fine. Hope your move goes good, I hate moving.

 

[kellieetal]

Thank you both. Husband just retired from military and I've loved moving along all these years--good thing for him, or he would have found himself a geographical bachelor for a long time. BUT this is the first move I'm NOT thrilled about. I'm determined to make the best of it, however, so I told the kids that if we have to move there, then we're at least gonna take advantage of the opportunity to raise chickens (along with a list of other things we couldn't do in our previous neighborhoods). I have been to the area before to visit the in-laws and witnessed assorted snakes and other critters scrambling for cover when hubby overturned a railroad tie, or some such thing in his father's garden. They don't leave food sources out for rodents, and I guess that would mean no sources of food for snakes, but dont' they pretty much make themselves at home in any shady spot (or warm sunning spot) even right in the open, or else in crawl spaces, or in (eek!) in my GARDEN?! I'm trying to be positive about our move, but I'm scared silly that I'm gonna send my kids out to play, or go out to weed my garden, and someone's gonna get bitten by a timber rattler (or some other venomous beasty), or else I"m gonng go out to clean my chicken coop and collect eggs only to find a slithery squatter in my egg box. Maybe there's a way to snake proof the entire perimeter of our property--eh, probably not. But if there is, I"m gonna find it!

 

[ivan3]

There are a lot of serpent suppression threads to peruse, here (advanced search function is very good - just remember to use the SEARCH button at the BOTTOM of the screen after declaring variables).

Southern Illinois, once you get down into `Little Egypt', isn't too trying on the eyes (Bald Cypress and big fish). IIRC the VA hospital in Marion has a little pyramid as part of the roof of the main building (sharpen scalpels under it ). SIU, in Carbondale, has some good resources (library is excellent).

Don't worry about the snakes, too much. The mosquitoes are the vermin to attend to.

Best of luck!