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I do not heat or use a light in my coop. One is insulated and I use shavings in the bottom of the coop. I let the shavings compost down with their droppings and it heats the coop some. I do stir it up once or twice during the winter. I have a new coop this year that is not insulated at all and will be using the same technique. I have never had trouble with the birds getting cold the water has frozen on the coldest days but other than that it has worked fine for me.

X2 I am using the same method in both my coops and cleaning the shavings totally in spring and again part way through fall. Around every 6 months. I do constantly strip and reshaving the nesting boxes though because I like those to be super clean but the coop floor I only clean about every 6 months or so (more if it's super nasty).
 
i came home to my first egg yesterday. a long pointy oval, cream-colored-and real small. i love it

i have all the chickens, seven hens and a rooster on a grower finisher that comes only in small pellets/crumbles
i'd like to switch up to the layer that comes in larger pellets but don't want to be giving ray, my rooster something that will hurt his health.

i've read a lot here on this forum and there are people advocating both positions, but i'd like to know what you vermonters are doing.

do you know if the extra calcium in the layer will hurt ray? if it does i'd just continue on with the finisher and add a side of oyster shells.

for those of you with roosters, what's your take?
 
I do feed layer mixed with a generic flock feed through poulin. This time of year they eat very little feed anyway the only ones that really seem to eat it are the littles and they are in a different coop and get grower or starter depending on age. Never had any issue with my roosters eating the egg layer feed. They are large and healthy.
 
Does anyone know where to get feed locally in quantities larger than 50lb bags? Any local mills I don't know about where you get your feed? I'd love organic, but it's not a priority at twice the price of regular.

I'd love to get a larger quantity and save a bit on feed. We have some room to store it (metal garbage cans in the coop), and are going through about a 50lb bag every week or so with 20 chickens.

I've emailed both Poulin and Green Mountain Feed, but am waiting for responses. I don't know if either of them do that, since I'm not interested in a ton or more at a time; just more like 100-200 pounds at a time.


I am also thinning a few birds from my flock, I'd like to try and find them homes before I eat them. I have a nice looking 6 month old BR roo who's not aggressive, hasn't even crowed yet since he's not our Alpha roo. I also have two 1.5 year old hens (a WR and PR), one is getting picked on by my other hens, the other is my big roo's favorite and starting to look bald behind the comb. If anyone has a want for these message me, I'd love the girls to go together since they are buddies and came to me together. The roo can go with or apart from them. He and my big roo get along fine, but between the two my hens are a bit over-mated, otherwise I'd keep him for breeding.

This picture is more than a month old, he's bigger now
IMG_1012.jpg


This is the poor bald girl (it's a bit worse since this pic), I feel bad for her
IMG_1039.jpg


IMG_8905.jpg
 
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