North to Alaska!

[laseterlass]

Most of the prefab huts are drafty and cheap I would not use one in Anchorage much less FB I built my own It is simple and it works very well

 

[AK Baha]

Are you all ready for winter? I am not! This is a little early for me.

 

[shabbychix]

Does anyone have experience with mixing a couple chickens with a couple ducks and a couple geese in the same coop, confined for most of the winter?

I have a friend who has the ducks and geese and would like to add a couple of my chickens.

Any opinions or experience would be most helpful!

 

[Alaskan]

I had ducks and chicken through one winter, but I had raised them together (not sure how much of a difference that makes).

I would make sure the chickens have a poop tray or some other "second floor" where they can hang out far away from the geese.

I would also want the water outside, to help the humidity stay down.

Geese are pretty big....i wonder if you could have a chicken feeder and waterer in an elevated location where the chickens could fly to it, but the geese couldn't bother them.

My ducks and geese can hold their own against each other.....but I just keep thinking how big those geese are. Dunno

 

[shabbychix]

Thank you so much for that info/opinion. We, of course, can't put water outside here .. or there would only be ice. I guess good ventilation may be the answer.

But personality wise, do you think the geese would go after the chickens if they are confined. No option to confinement. I get what you're saying, geese are big. Ideally it would've been nice for everyone to get to know each other during the summer when they are outside.

 

[Alaskan]

Well, my geese try to go after my chickens, but there is a fence in between them. The geese actually grab the fence in their mouth and shake it. They are clearly doing it because they are fussing at the chickens for some unknown reason.

So, unless someone has experience with housing them together, I would think there would be a high risk of the geese killing or damaging the chickens. Maybe you should ask on one of the geese threads here on BYC, because I really don't know.

As to water freezing, are you in Fairbanks?

I do get perpetual ice water freezing issues..... But mostly because I am always having power outages. Also, I am up high enough, and with a bunch of wind, and that greatly increases the freezing potential. I have actually already had some frozen water these past few days *sigh*

But, I use a stock tank deicer that is safe to put directly on rubber. I then put that in one of those black rubber horse feed pans. The stock tank deicer is strong enough to thaw itself out of a solid block of ice, which happens frequently.

I have to be super careful about the water and humidity issues, because being close to the coast I have pretty high humidity just in general.

 

[907chickens]

I have 10 birds. 8 are loosing feathers on their backs. They're only 7 months old. Could they be molting already or could it be something else? Any ideas are welcome. No roosters and hardly any pecking. Thanks

 

[AK Baha]

What kind of feed ? They may need more protein.Days are starting to get cold.

 

[907chickens]

20% protein from AK mill. Scratch mix and meal worms. Do we have mites up here?

 

[AK Baha]

I am a very new bird owner. But I have never had a problem with them . Are they cooped up or free range? Mine take a dust bath everyday.You should be able to see lice and nits if you look close at there feathers.