It may seem odd for a bird that evolved in tropical Southeast Asia to thrive up in the frigid north but increasing numbers of people are enjoying the benefits of backyard chickens inCanada, Maine, Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, in Northern Minnesota, and even Alaska.
Although, chickens are hardy and adaptable, raising them way up north requires special management. Among the challenges both chickens and their owners face is frigid temperatures, vastly different day lengths between winter and summer, and the sometimes difficulty of buying feed and supplies in areas far from where chicken culture is common.
Steve Brown, extension agent for the University of Alaska Fairbanks Cooperative Extension office, Palmer, AK, has been advocating chicken husbandry in Alaska for many years. He has a flock and regularly helps others acquire and manage birds. It’s challenging but the rewards are many.
Frigid Temperatures
Chickens sheltered from the cold.
Everyone knows Alaska is a cold place, so during the long winter hens need a coop that protects them from the wind and predators and moderates the temperature some. Moisture causes chicken manure in litter to quickly generate ammonia so keeping the coop dry is important. Brown uses the deep litter method to keep the coop floor dry and only occasionally warms his coop when temperatures drop really low.
Daylight
Chickens are daytime creatures and in southern Alaska there’s upwards of 17 hours of darkness in the winter. “LED bulbs solve the lighting problem and keep expenses down. Electricity is expensive here, and LED bulbs provide great light while consuming little energy, keeping my costs down,” said Brown. During warm seasons he lets his chickens forage in the yard and also uses a chicken tractor.
Supplies
Nearly all food is shipped to the state, so finding fresh eggs is challenging, but Steve and many others enjoy eggs that come directly from the coop. Fresh eggs sell for $8 a dozen!
Chicks can successfully be shipped to the cold north.
But, where do the chicks come from? “I buy chicks from a company in Texas. They airmail them to me and they arrive in good shape. Usually I buy about 100 chicks, raise them for several weeks and sell most of them to other families who want chickens using Alaskas List, like Craig’s List. I keep a small flock at my home,” he said.
Feed and supplies are hard to come by in Alaska and expensive. “I don’t buy grit but collect sand and small pebbles from a nearby river bank, and I feed my chickens a lot of kitchen scraps, dog food, and fish scraps. Sometimes fishy taste gets into the eggs,” he said.
Brown sticks with hardy brown egg laying breeds which stand the cold better than Leghorns. “I like Chanteclers, Rhode Island Reds, Plymouth Rocks, and Orpingtons,” he said.
Continental Climate Chickens
Chicken Tractor
Another family that raises far north chickens is Paul and Karen Colson. They probably raise the most northern flock in the contiguous United States. They live in Minnesota’s Northwest Angle. The Angle is a relatively small area bounded by the Lake of the Woods and Manitoba. To reach it, a driver must enter Canada, drive NE about 40 miles, and then reenter this remote part of the United States. Like Alaska, nearly all supplies must be hauled in a long distance.
The Colsons raise broilers and keep a small flock of laying hens. Although not as far north as Alaska they face the same challenges of cold, day length, access to supplies, and predators as Brown does and manage their chickens in a similar way.
No place is really too far north to keep chickens. It takes more time and work to keep hens healthy in a harsh climate but the fresh eggs and meat they provide make it worthwhile.
Sometimes hens go broody at the wrong time of year.
We were surprised when one of our California White hens started acting strangely. She puffed up her feathers, clucked in an unusual tone, and spent hours patiently sitting in a nest box. But. we know she’s not sick. She’s broody and wants to be a mom.
We are not surprised when one of our large brown egg laying hens gets broody. Some breeds have a very strong maternal instinct and often show the maternal instinct. But California Whites are a hybrid of the white egg laying Leghorn breed, which rarely goes broody. In years of chicken keeping, this is the first time a white egg layer has shown a maternal instinct.
When one of our hens goes broody we do one of two things.
Discourage her:
Sometimes a hen goes broody at the wrong time, like December. Since the incubation time for a chicken egg is 21 days,
Since the incubation time for a chicken egg is 21 days, chicks hatching when the January temperatures may be 25 below zero isn’t a good idea. Also, we don’t have a rooster, so all the eggs are hens lay are infertile. Sometimes we discourage a broody hen because we don’t need more chicks.
To discourage a broody hen we move her to a separate coop where she’s alone and there is no nest box. We give her plenty of room and lots of good food and water. Often, she’ll shake the broody habit in a few days and we return her to the main coop.
Mother hen with new chick
Encourage her:
The brooding process is fascinating. If a hen goes broody in spring when chicks will hatch during warm weather and we want some more chicks, we’ll encourage her. We move her to her own small coop where she’s away from the other hens, give her a secure nest box, and put eight to 12 fertile eggs under her. If we don’t have a rooster, we’ll swap eggs with a nearby family who does or order fertile eggs online. She’ll sit patiently until the chicks hatch, and then the fun begins. The new mom will lead her babies around the coop, talking to them in chicken language. She’ll show them how to find food and keep them warm by letting them burrow into her feathers. Many hens are ideal mothers that teach and protect their babies. It’s a natural process, fun to watch, and is one of the joys of keeping chickens.
Moles in winter? You bet! We were amused and amazed to look out our den window and see a heaped-up line of topsoil on top of several stepping stones. Even in Winter, our moles are active!
Many people hate moles because their tunneling raises mini ridges in the lawn and their hills smother a patch of grass and get
Moles bring rich dirt from below to the surface as they tunnel along hunting for earthworms and grubs.
caught in a lawnmower’s blades. Some go to great lengths to poison or kill moles.
How Moles Are Helpful
We don’t. They’re amazing animals that provide us with a wonderful service. Their endless digging in search of earthworm and insect meals softens the soil, enabling water to easily percolate in and helping plants grow. The greenest grass of the lawn always seems to be where moles tunneled last year.
Instead of persecuting our moles we simply stomp down the raised tunnels and rake out the mole hill before mowing, and then we quietly thank our subterranean helpers before starting up the lawnmower.
Moles are active all year but the frozen ground is daunting for them. Our January moles were tunneling in the soft unfrozen soil on the south side of the house and under dark stones that catch the sun’s heat and keep the ground underneath them unfrozen. We hope they found some grubs and worms for dinner.
We’re happy to share our yard with moles and appreciate the positive impact they have on the soil. Watch this YouTube Video about moles.
We were astounded to read a news story stating that 20% of Iowa’s trash is food waste. That’s about 556,000 tons of food tossed out by our state’s people, and Iowan’s aren’t unusual. Americans everywhere discard food into the trash or grind it in the garbage disposal and send it off to the sewer plant. Other solutions exist!
Winding Pathways isn’t a contributor to this vast waste because we manage our family food carefully. Our main way of reducing waste is buying carefully so we don’t end up with more perishables than we can eat in a reasonable time. It saves money at the market, but still, a lot of scraps result from meal preparation.
Save Money. Create Soil.
Instead of tossing out potato and carrot peels, bits of rice that get caught in the sink strainer, onion skins, shrimp tails, egg shells, coffee grounds, and a host of other organic matter we separate it into two bowls that we empty daily.
Our first bowl becomes chicken treats. Our 14 hens love shrimp tails, wilted lettuce, bread crusts and other items we can’t eat. When we approach the coop with our scrap bowl our hens rush to meet us and devour the treats with considerable enthusiasm. In a day or two they return the favor by presenting us with delicious eggs.
Our second bowl is everything the chickens won’t eat or we don’t want them to eat and includes potato peels, egg shells, coffee grounds and filters, avocado skins, citrus fruit skins and other relatively course organic items that most folks toss in the trash. These become the ingredients for rich compost.
Our composter is gradually filled overwinter. We create a layer of food scraps a couple of inches thick and then add a layer of chicken manure mixed with wood chips from the coop and ash from the woodstove. Manure is another gift from our hens that speeds up the composting process. The layers gradually decompose, and by spring we harvest outstanding rich compost to dig into our garden.
Return on Our Dollar
Summertime meal from the garden.
We don’t buy fertilizer. We make it from food scraps. Beans, squash, carrots, okra, chard, kale, lettuce, and tomatoes seem to jump from the compost-enrichened soil, and on many summer days everything we eat comes from the yard.
Then we return the little scraps from our garden vegetables to the chickens or compost pile, completing a cycle of abundance. We save money and spare the landfill unnecessary waste.
Each winter we love discovering colorful seed catalogs in our mail. The landscape may be snowy and the air frigid but flipping through catalogs and savoring photos of flowering prairies and ripe tomatoes makes us think spring.
We buy many types of seeds for our prairie and woodland restorations, the chicken run and the vegetable garden. Often, we order from several companies and buy some seeds in local garden supply stores.
Like many wildflower enthusiasts, we prefer buying seeds grown as close to our Iowa home as possible. They are well adapted to our climate and soil. Googling NATIVE PLANT SEED SOURCES will steer anyone to seed companies close to where they live, even if that’s Australia!
Here are some of our favorite sources:
SEED SAVERS EXCHANGE, 3094 North Winn Road, Decorah, IA 52101. www.seedsavers.org. This is our favorite source for garden vegetable seeds. The catalog lists hundreds of varieties. Many are heritage types hard to find anywhere else. It’s where we buy seeds for Silver Bell winter squash, our favorite. Seed Savers is a fun place to visit located near the college town of Decorah, Iowa.
ALBERT LEA SEED HOUSE, 1414 West Main Street, Albert Lea, MN 56007. www.alseed.com. We’ve bought prairie wildflower seeds and a few pounds of turnip seeds that thrived in our chicken run from this company, and we enjoy visiting their fun store.
ERNST SEEDS,8884 Mercer Pike, Meadville, PA 16335. www.ernstseed.com. A few years ago, we were looking for buckwheat seed to plant in our chicken run. We found it at Ernst Seeds, and it thrived. Ernst sells a wide range of seeds.
ION EXCHANGE, Harpers Ferry, Iowa, www.ionxchange.com. Ion Exchange sells both seeds and started plants for prairie and woodland restorations.
PHEASANTS FOREVER, www.pheasantsforever.org. This conservation organization sells seed mixtures especially developed to provide wildlife habitat and food. It is an excellent source of reasonably priced seeds for planting large areas.
Seeds are one of nature’s miracles. Given the right care and location each tiny and seemingly dead seed brings life to the land that is a feast for the eye and palate.
(This story first appeared in the Cedar Rapids Gazette.)
A few months ago, my wife called me to her computer to view our electric bill. Although the weather had been mild the previous month we were still proud to see a $13.18 bill, or about 45 cents a day.
That’s a low bill for us but even when we figure in higher use during hot and cold seasons our monthly average bill is $38, or about 32% of the average $114 residential bill. Our medium size home has typical appliances and lights yet we annually pay Alliant Energy about $936 less than other families.
We’ve done nothing magical, and nearly any home following our strategy is certain to reduce their costs without sacrificing comfort or convenience. Here are gradual steps we took to save money and electricity.
First, we exercise the power of the human index finger. If it’s not in use, we turn it off. The sun provides free light and heat yet never sends a bill. In winter, we open south facing blinds to welcome the sun’s light and warmth and close them at sunset.
Second, we embrace technology. Incandescent bulbs are bygone era dinosaurs. Modern LED bulbs provide better light while consuming much less electricity. Although costly just a few years ago, now LED’s are competitively priced. We didn’t gradually replace incandescents. Instead we tossed out those still working to convert the whole house to efficient lighting. It was a bit of an “ouch” for Marion, who is a “Yankee of the “use it up, wear it out, make do our do without” philosophy. However, almost immediately our electric bill shrank enough to cover bulb costs. Savings will continue for years.
Third, when buying a new appliance, we purchase the most energy efficient model available, which generally wears the Energy Star logo. Old appliances are costly thieves. Efficient replacements normally cost slightly more than less efficient models, but utility savings quickly erase the difference. Efficiency is a wise financial investment.
With high efficiency in place our bill shrank to $55 a month, or just under half the average home’s cost. We wanted to do better so contracted with Site Gen Solar in Cedar Rapids to install a solar electric, or photovoltaic, system.
Just before the 2016 June summer solstice they installed a modest system and six months months later we received tax credits that dropped its cost nearly in half. Every day our photovoltaics convert sunlight into electricity. When we’re making more power than we’re using electricity runs our meter backward, enters the grid, and helps power neighboring homes. The photovoltaic system dropped our average bill to $36, and we’re enjoying an 11% return on our solar electric investment.
Efficiency and photovoltaics do more than reduce cost. They help us avoid burning coal and gas used to generate electricity. We have taken a positive step toward reducing climate change. It feels good.
During our quest to reduce cost we had a surprising partner – Alliant Energy. Alliant gave us information and financial incentives to buy less of their product. It’s an ironic position for a company. Imagine Exxon Mobile or Walmart doing the same! We are neither employees nor stockholders of the utility but appreciate their help.
Nearly every family can protect itself from increased cost and help the environment by using energy efficiently. Some can add photovoltaics to further cut cost. For information on how to receive a free energy assessment, rebates for efficient equipment, and several other ways of easily reducing cost contact Alliant. For anyone interested in adding photovoltaics the City of Cedar Rapids and Linn County are partnering a Solar Group Buy this year to reduce installation costs. To learn more access www.SolarizeLinnCounty.com.
