Blizzard in CT

Date sort Score sort
newcanaanchicks

newcanaanchicks

In the Brooder
5 Years
Aug 6, 2014
50
3
43
New Canaan,CT
first winter for my hens and myself. So far so good except for some fox issues. With the blizzard coming into CT tomorrow, 1/26/2015, my gut is telling me to keep the coop closed up during the storm. I free range my hens so the coop is small and just for nighttime sleeping. Maybe keep it closed with a little water and food?
 
Do you have a run attached to your coop? If so, I would at least give them the option of going out in the run, although chickens don't necessarily like snow. If you can, in the future you might want to consider expanding your coop for this very reason. They will need food and water in the coop if you're not going to let them out. Especially if it's going to be very cold.
 
I do. Just seems like with all the wind and snow it might just get the inside of the coop filled up with snow and wet once it melts with their heat. I can put food and water in the coop. It's made for 10 but I only have 5 in it now.... We are to get 3 feet of snow so the water and food will get buried if I leave it out.
 
How big is your coop? Length, width, height?

(I've gotta admit - I don't envy you with that storm coming. Hopefully they've overestimated.)
 
Last edited:
Mine will be spending tomorrow and Wednesday inside (I am in northeastern MA). I'm not hiking out there to open and close doors, and I highly doubt they would go out anyway. Besides, I haven't even finished cleaning runs from the 9" we got Saturday.

My coops are a lot larger though so I don't worry about them being locked up. One is 8x16 with 6 birds, another is 8x12 with 5 birds and the third is 4x6 with 4 bantams. Gotta get out there this morning to fill waterers and feeders, and hope the power doesn't go out. I don't want to have to deal with frozen waterers too.
 
Last edited:
Good plan. I'll keep mine in. It's for 24 hours. They should be fine with water and food. With the blinding snow conditions I worry they might get lost walking around and not make it back for the night
 
I'm having this debate with myself today, as well. I live in Mass., and we are supposed to get 30+ inches with howling winds. Unfortunately, we have a small coop (only 4x4) with 5 chickens. Our run is large (8x12) and is a-frame that is covered top to bottom. But the door side and side against the coop have only hardware cloth. Normally, the water is in the coop with a water heater and the food is in the run. I'm planning on refilling the water tonight and putting their food in the run. Depending on the white out conditions, I might not be able to get out to the coop to open the door to the run until Tues. afternoon. So they might have to hunker in for a bit. I'm hoping the snow doesn't decide to drift into their run!

The only plus to this storm is that it is not happening Weds/Thurs, as I'm supposed to be having surgery on Thursday. Of course, they're warning that we might lose power for multiple days, so overall, I am not a happy camper.
 
Hi All,

I am in LI and we are slated for 24"+ of snow I plastic wrapped the run with plastic sheathing yesterday so they can go from the coop to the run as they please. The run and coop have a roof so I am good there- just need to protect from the 50-75+ mph winds they are predicting

can you wrap your run in a tarp or plastic to keep the snow and wind out?
 
Fortunately only 2" where I am and was shoveling paths to barn and chic shed and its glaringly white and a huge black bird(or so it seemed!) flew past my head and I thought it was a hawk but it was a BO that had escaped early wanting to get on the shoveled path! They don't like to get in deep snow, generally, so I shovel paths and given I have been keeping them "penned up"(normally pastured) because of hawk attacks I now have to shovel out the pen area or they will be stuck in 10'x12' smelly shed. I can handle the cold but the snow puts a twist in the already hard winter chicken keeping, IMO.
 

Similar threads

D
    • Like
Need advice for new hen getting bullied
Replies
2
Views
208
Dana g
D
F
How cold hardy are tiny bantams?
Replies
3
Views
782
JedJackson
JedJackson
booksandcranies
How cold is to cold for bantam?
2
Replies
13
Views
1K
BDutch
BDutch
Fluster Cluck Acres
Looking for integration advice - probably overthinking it like usual
Replies
3
Views
314
McChooky
McChooky
Jwebb35
How cold is too cold
Replies
3
Views
1K
Jwebb35
Jwebb35

New posts New threads Active threads

Back
Top Bottom