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Title: Gulching - Any Experience Here?
Source: Lonsome Self
URL Source: http://None
Published: Apr 23, 2006
Author: ...
Post Date: 2006-04-23 00:31:48 by ...
Keywords: None
Views: 2534
Comments: 67

I am playing with the idea of surviving with very little money. The way my dad did back in the great depression.

We've put in 100 tomato plants and are planning to can spaghetti sauce and a form of vedgitarian chili for the winter. I've also got a buch of peppers going in and several varieties of squash. The squash will keep through the winter.

A woman down the road raises chickens and she was giving me tips on setting this up. It seems like an amazing amount of work. Buried fences faced with sheet metal to keep out foxes and coyotes. She said she lost 20 of her 50 free range hens to foxes last year in broad daylight. I was going to start with ten chickens just to get the feel of it, but I might shine this one. Still thinking it over. One problem is that is sometimes gets to 50 below here in the winter and this makes even more problems for livestock. She was telling me how a thick paste of chicken shit and sawdust on the floor helps keep the coop warm - bleeech.

Last year I tried out some fish traps in the rivers and they worked great. Illegal as hell, but really effective.

Anybody got any other ideas on crops? I am looking for things that grow and produce all summer and, hopefully, could be sold at a produce stand. Corn and wheat take too much land. Truck farming stuff seems best.

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Begin Trace Mode for Comment # 13.

#7. To: ... (#0)

Forget raising chickens for eggs and the freezer.....if the thought of 'poop' bothers you. Oftentimes raising baby chicks or any other fowl, for that matter, their little butts can get 'poop' smeared on where it dries.

IF it is not removed, i.e., wetting the rear end and then using your finger to pick it off, the chick dies because they become bound up.

OTOH, there is nothing like raising your own eggs and 'fried chicken'. YOU determine what they eat. And homegrown chicken egg yolks are a GOLDEN YELLOW--the real deal--not a puny yellow as so many stores have. I sold eggs and raw milk and covered the costs of feeding my chickens and cow, so it was like free for my family.

All livestock production has its ups and downs. BUT of the thought of 'poop' shit bothers you, fuggit bout it. Rabbits are a quick turn around--if you're prepared to sex them and keep them separated--otherwise you have a zillion babies. And your market gets saturated. But with them, if you couldn't stand the squeal of them being slaughtered, fuggit bout it, too.

As to the 50 below and chickens.........I raised 24 hens and a rooster in a non- insulated chicken house. I kept the floor and nesting boxes strawed down in winter. I also had one end of the house made of raised 'roosting' tiers....I used chicken wire to cover these roosing areas so that nothing like a weasel or fox or skunk could grab chickens if they managed to get up through the floor.

This was in western Montana; and the first winter there, we had 120 inches of snow from 10/31 thru 2/29 drop. And January was one of the coldest months-- incredibly windy, making the wind chill factor a real element in producing below zero weather for several weeks. The rooster's comb got partially frostbit. None died......and of the 24 hens, I was getting 22 to 24 eggs a day thru that whole winter!

The real bitch was having to haul warm water out there 2x a day and collecting eggs, else they'd freeze and crack.

All livestock do much better thru winter if they have water that isn't ice. It doesn't have to be as warm as tap water, but several degrees above freezing encourages them to drink more.........and water is vital to all of them.

rowdee  posted on  2006-04-23   1:18:52 ET  Reply   Untrace   Trace   Private Reply  

Forget raising chickens for eggs and the freezer.....if the thought of 'poop' bothers you. Oftentimes raising baby chicks or any other fowl, for that matter, their little butts can get 'poop' smeared on where it dries.

I've been toying with the idea of getting a chicken coop to raise eggs for myself. There are a few people around here who do it, even though it can get to 30 below and we get a lot of snow in the winter. I have been buying them fresh from local people, but a lot of them have been having problems with their chickens not laying lately. It doesn't sound easy!

Diana  posted on  2006-04-23   5:15:20 ET  Reply   Untrace   Trace   Private Reply  

#16. To: Diana (#13)

having problems with their chickens not laying lately

No chicken will lay every day, all year. If I recall correctly, an egg a day for about a third of the year is a reasonable goal. Different breeds vary. The conventional wisdom is to keep your brood such that some are on one cycle and some on another. You have to determine this empirically, though I think you can just go by when they were hatched. Then, keep a rooster in a seperate but close run, because his presence will stimulate the hens to lay. But don't let him in the same run(or even against the same stretch of fence), because fertilized eggs will stop them from laying.

The idea is that, at any given time, about a third to a half of your chickens are laying, and you will have a fairly stable supply of eggs year-round. If you just go buy some biddies and put 'em in a coop, you will usually wind up with them all on the same cycle.

Disclaimer: that was all pulled from my childhood memories, so there could be errors there.

Rabble Rouser  posted on  2006-04-23 09:22:38 ET  Reply   Untrace   Trace   Private Reply  

The key is to learn what is needed. As bikinis are probably not everyday wear in Alaska for a reason, so would raising chickens.

However, just as with bikini wearers who have learned the 'hows and whens' of wearing them make the necessary adaptations, so too would chicken growers--or any other livestock.

There are rewards--I enjoyed raising the critters a lot--though when it was time to kill, clean, and freeze before EATING was not 'fun'.

I raised a large breed of chicken--they were hearty, and when the laying days were over, they were great in a pot for chicken soup. There are breeds specifically for egg laying, but their lives are short-lived; and they're generally scrawny looking critters. I raised Buff Orphingtons which have a rather gentle demeanor whereas some of the egg specifics are flighty nervous wrecks.

Chickens go through a moult period when they lose feathers and generally don't lay eggs in that period. This was not very noticeable with the Buffs.

If you're just wanting eggs, you don't need a rooster to fertilize them. I would imagine in Alaska, a coop or house would require a heat lamp to burn in the cold months. We planned to run electric to the chicken house, but ran out of time that first winter, and after seeing how well they did, we decided we didn't need to take electricity to there.

rowdee  posted on  2006-04-23 11:35:13 ET  Reply   Untrace   Trace   Private Reply  

I have been buying them fresh from local people, but a lot of them have been having problems with their chickens not laying lately.

Try putting the chicken in a vice and tightening it. Not too much though or you will break the egg.

...  posted on  2006-04-23 11:43:08 ET  Reply   Untrace   Trace   Private Reply  

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