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

[Joyce Hoffman-Gayley]

Hey, Mickey - I, too am glad you all came through well. I'm a little confused, are you in WV? I thought you were in central PA. Could be I just misread.
I would let that randy fella know that dinner is an option if he doesn't watch out. LOL.
Guess what I found last night??? 4 of my guinea hens had come through the pet door in our garage and were roosting in the rafters. I can't really blame them. I don't even know when they did it, they were very quiet and there were no tracks in the snow - very odd. I shouldn't be surprised, they are smarter than they look. Now, I'm not looking forward to cleaning off my car when they leave - yuck!
We have one of those NOAA weather reporting stations about 3 miles from us and this morning they are saying we actually got 28.3 inches, but who's quibbling. I have niece who lives in Hagerstown, MD, I'll have to give her a call and see how they made out. She has a 3 yr. old and an 11 month old. I can just imagine those two the first time they go out in this!
Yeah, I hear what you're saying about getting your new coop. I think it would be a nightmare this time of year to try to either pour a foundation (if it can even be done, I don't know) or make the ground level enough for some sort of footing. What are you planning on doing in regards to that? We made a couple expensive mistakes before we finally made an 8' X 10' X 6" deep pad on which we built our most recent henhouse. We used pressure treated 4X4's and then built the coop on top of those. That might sound like a big base but by making it that big we now have an elevated, dry area to walk that goes all tbe way around the coop when ever we need to do anything. It's saved me cleaning up a lot especially after it rains - I don't have to walk on wet, squishy, muddy ground. In the summer, I spread some sand on the area directly under the coop and the girls like to scratch around and just get out of the sun under there. I'm not a fan of coops that make direct contact with the ground, I really like the stilts and it has worked well for us. A friend of mine built her coop directly attached to her garage. Not my cup of tea but it works for her. Everyone is different.

[hsehntr98]

Joyce glad to hear you and the girls are doing fine. We got about 18-20" at my house and on the worst of the two days I just kept the coop closed and made sure they had fresh water and food and they seemed content. Except for one randy rooster everyone did fine. I think I will have to wait for new coop now until spring unless this snow goes away real quick. The area hit the hardest in WV is Shepherdstown which is on the WV/Maryland border, they got 40".

[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.

[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]

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.

[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 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!

[redman2006]

South and West of DC. Out of Fredericksburg.

[southernmom]

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

what part of Virginia?

[redman2006]

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

[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.

[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.

[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]

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]

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.