Chickens and all things fowl..........

[hsehntr98]

Well we are getting ready for a major blizzard to come through late Thursday to Sunday. They are talking a possible 2 feet of snow. I have my chicken coop covered a little to help hold in the heat and I am going to throw in some more straw tomorrow. And we will see just how prepared we really are.

[southernmom]

We throw our chickens corn on the cob from what we have grown and also from the local farm we buy from-and the chickens love it. They seriously go crazy for it.

[redman2006]

Those birds will be GTG. If the snow sticks to the outside of the coop, it will do a nice job insulating it. My birds go out in snow and take what looks like a dust bath in it. If the birds are at all acclimated, they will have 0 issues. They are far worse off at 34 and drizzling rain than 15 and snow.

[tk]

I'll tell ya a story about how tuff chickens are. My buddy's wife is an animal lover, especially dogs and cats but she has had all kinds of unwanted animals end up at their place . She takes all the cats that wonder in and has them fixed . I think 28 of them now they stay in the shed she calls the cat house.
But this is about a rooster named Toto. They use to bring in a small incubator at the elementary school in one of the grades and hatch out some eggs every year, then when they did some of the kids would take them home. I know both my kids brought some home from there.
So my buds daughter brings one home and they name it Toto. It now becomes my buds wife (Neice) responsibility. They don't have chickens so Neice Puts it in a rabbit pen that sits about 4 feet off the ground. Well she spoiled Toto ; she actually cut him up fruit and vegies every day of his life. He always stayed within 20 feet of his pen and crowed all the time.
Jump ahead 9 years . She notices his feet turning black one winter she thinks he froze them so she brought him into the garage and babied him even more. With in 2 weeks both his feet dried up and fell off at the joint. It never seemed to bother him he walked or hopped on the back of his legs. After winter when she let him roam again he would still fly up to his pen and sit in the door way. I use to make fun of him and tell Neice Hey I think Toto jumped down from his pen and is stuck in the mud he hasn't moved in a couple of hours. She didn't think I was funny. He lived 2 more years with no feet . If he wasn't so fat he probably would have lived longer. Probably died of a heart attack. So don't worry to much about chickens in cold weather . Their feet may freeze and fall off but they'll live. TK

[redman2006]

I had a fox get in the coop one night right after I moved the young birds out to it. It killed apile of them and injured a bunch more. One had a wing broken and half chewed off. The bone was sticking out.

Well, I could not catch the bird to put it down, so I let it go. The next day, it was at the feeder eating. I decided to give it a chance. I just let nature take its course. The distal portion of the wing fell off eventually, the bone dried up as well and came out. During it all, that bird ate and was laying productively. It continued to lay for about 2 years.



As an aside, you going to get hammered by this blizzard TK?

[tk]

We got a couple inches last night. If it stays south of the burgh like they say we wont get any. But if it changes course by 30 miles we should get hammered. It's winter . Only difference is I will either have to plow or not.

[hsehntr98]

Well tk I am almost as bad as your friends wife. When we lived up in Oregon OH we had several stray cats around our house and I fed them so needless to say they stuck around. In the process the three females had several litters of kittens. When we would find them we would wait until they were out walking around at about 8 weeks or more, we would take them to the vet and have them tested for FIV, if they were negative they came home, if they were positive they went to cat heaven. If they came home they came into the house and became pets. When they were old enough they were spayed or neutered and became part of the clan. That is how I ended up with the 10 cats we have now. When we left Ohio there was only one female left that I know of so if she had any more kittens I don't know what happened to them.
We have tried to get ready for the storm. I got three of the four generators out to check them out and husband said he checked them, and they won't run because he left gas in them and it became turpentine, so if we lose our power the freezers should be ok because we don't get into them very often, but I am not sure about the fridge. So my next project will be to get the generators and the chain saws to a shop and have them overhauled. So much for trying to prepare when you get sabotaged by mu spouse.

[redman2006]

Buddy of mine in Virginia is being told to expect 40 inches. THAT is a decent snow.

[southernmom]

Buddy of mine in Virginia is being told to expect 40 inches. THAT is a decent snow.

what part of Virginia?

[redman2006]

South and West of DC. Out of Fredericksburg.

[Joyce Hoffman-Gayley]

Well we are getting ready for a major blizzard to come through late Thursday to Sunday. They are talking a possible 2 feet of snow. I have my chicken coop covered a little to help hold in the heat and I am going to throw in some more straw tomorrow. And we will see just how prepared we really are.

I think you and your girls will do just fine. We're expecting the same storm to hit us but prolly only about 15 inches. To tell the truth I'm more worried about the 50 mph winds they say we might get. Good luck!

[hsehntr98]

Our snow started at about 6:00 am and it was blowing east to west. We probably have at least 6" on the ground. I will check around 1:30 pm when I go out to check on pigs and give them their lunch time snack. Opened the chicken coop this morning and no one seemed to want to come out, so I left it opened while I changed water and gave them food and the snow was blowing into the door so when I was done with the chores I closed the door. Might open it again later if the wind dies down a little. Stay safe.

[Joyce Hoffman-Gayley]

Well, here we are 6 hrs. post storm. My prediction missed our total accumulation by just a little bit. It's kinda hard to get an accurate measurement. I guestimate we got about 25-26 inches. We're hunkered down and everybody is snug and warm. The girls are as contented as I have ever seen them. Even when we only had a few inches they were happy to just roost. I sat in the coop with them for about 20 minutes while I gave them fresh water and topped up their feed. A couple of them looked at the door but I had no takers on going out. So I left them a small pile of meal worms as a treat and closed them up for the duration. I was just out there a few minutes ago and they seem to have done well. The nice thing about snow is that it is insulating. There is a 5 foot drift up the side & back. I made sure the vents were clear and came back in to warm myself up. We have a pet door in our garage side door and this morning when I checked we had 4 of the guinea hens in there. I don't know where the others are, but they are hardy birds and I'm sure they'll show up soon. I have to admit it's a little disconcerting to go into the garage and see 4 rather large birds roosting in the rafters. Considering the garage is heated, I'm sure they're quite content. Cleanup won't be any fun though.....argh.

[redman2006]

Watch that pet door. Guineas are not the only thing that will find it. Lol. A buddy put one of the electronic ones in that work off a collar after the skunk incident. The coons were acceptable, the skunk was not!

[Joyce Hoffman-Gayley]

Yeah, I know, we've had a fox or two and coons as well over the years. The way we see it is the birds can stay high enough to get away and they make such a racket we know when something is in there with them. My husband put up a metal (chew-proof) shed that we keep all the feed and anything else that might attract the bad boys in there so with the exception of one of our extra fridges & a freezer there is nothing edible in the garage. Those they can't get into either. We had one of our neighbors dogs come in during a bad storm once a couple years back and I'd rather risk an unwanted animal getting in occasionally but still give a "good" animal safety in a bad time. I do appreciate your concern however.