Surviving Minnesota!

[Bogtown Chick]

I like the looks of those bantams Layers. Alot. I think I would be a bantam chicken lady if the eagles didn't pick 'em up like scooby snacks here.

Sentry and girls are finding free range pickins' really really thin out there. Bugs frogs and the like for protein are long burrowed and gone. Bone cold out there. Ground is getting hard. If we get snow it will stick this time. It is spitting a flake or two. You know those perfect 6 point ones that fall 1 every 10 seconds. very light here and there. The 3 pullets and one lavender Ameraucana laying every other or every 2 days. So there are eggs of some number each day. But I feel it is sort of thinning out now. Lovely little hens. Winter is coming and time to make the coop really cozy along with the Run.

 

[Varagol]

So I felt silly this morning. Picked up some straw bales for the coop, and evidently one of the babies from this summer (5 months old), got perturbed. So perturbed, she flew up and over the 5' wall.

I've never seen such acrobatic Jersey Giants in my life. Hoping she'll come back, as she ran into the woods clucking like a madwoman.

 

[CindyinSD]

Morning . Rain overnight . Wet chilly day . Predicting 1-3 inches of snow tomorrow night . I don't remember snow in October here . Not ready for snow .

It was -15 Fahrenheit here when I went to bed around 11:30. The snow (18” all together from two storms) did not all melt yet... This is insane. I’m not counting yesterday’s snow.. it was too fluffy to count and too windy to measure.

 

[jerryse]

We had about 2 inches of snow . 4-6 predicted for tonight . Will set new records here for most in 1 day in October and the most ever recorded for the month of October . Sigh and it is not winter yet .

 

[Varagol]

And thankfully, (and let be honest, pretty lucky) all the ladies were back in the run this evening. I opened the door so the others would wander out (Two other Jerseys, one Cochin) they all ran into the little black and white blob that they do when together.

So all four back in the coop. I think I'm getting the bird netting tomorrow, no need to have another episode of the little ones flying the coop if they get a piece of straw stuck in the tookus!

 

[CindyinSD]

It’s barely “Autumn.”

 

[Bogtown Chick]

It was -15 Fahrenheit here when I went to bed around 11:30. The snow (18” all together from two storms) did not all melt yet... This is insane. I’m not counting yesterday’s snow.. it was too fluffy to count and too windy to measure.

I put up the long tarps tonight with ball bungees. It. Was. So. Easy! And to take down and convert to summer mode will be easy as well. DS helped me cinch things down a bit but super easy and he said it was a good call for ease as well.

 

[Varagol]

I posted a similar question over in ducks, but was wondering if you fine folks could chime in:

How old is old enough for baby ducks to go out into the coop? Mine are two weeks old now, and I was thinking about week 8 to move them out there. 10" of straw on the floor, wind protection, draft protection. Four year old chickens out there now.

With single digit temps the end of Nov (when they would be going out), do I need to supplement a heat source? I'll move the baby chicks out there on their week 12, bringing the total to 25 birds in a 10x12 coop. A little tight, but should be snug (and lots of room if they want to go outside in the run).

Ideas?

 

[Bogtown Chick]

Idk. I’ve always been of the theory that farm babies are born in the spring in these cold areas for good reason. But certainly some adapting can be done. Once fully feathered out they should be fine I would say. Ducks seem to be adapted to cold quite easily. I would start cooling down the brooder (and start adapting in a cold garage or something ) 80 degree brooder to freezing conditions might have some level of shock and adjustment. I would say making that gradual would be beneficial.

 

[duluthralphie]

I will not voice my opinion on where and when dux should go...