BYCer's in Hurricane Zones

[Lorije1]

Hurricane season is upon us.... do you do anything special to prepare your chickens when there is a storm in the Gulf? If you live in an evacuation zone, what are your plans for your fine feathered friends? If you ride it out at home, do you leave the chickens in their coop, in your garage, in your house or in your bathtub covered with a mattress

?

 

[mylittlechickpea]

Eek! I just to Hawaii a few months ago, our hurricane season starts next month

I'm grew up in Nevada and have never had to deal with this before. I'm terrified. Although I haven't heard of anything happening here lately, but we had that "big" tsunami warning a couple months ago, nothing happened... I have only my one little house chicken, so in the case that anything does arise We'll just tape and/or board the windows and ride it out inside. Depending on how bad it could be we could go to my uncle's house, he's got a nice sturdy home that's been through a hurricane or two.

Good luck, everyone!

 

[dawg53]

I have crates and cages for evacuation. If we go,the chickens go. We've been through several tropical storms and only once did I move them into the garage due to falling limbs and branches in the yard. I hope the we never have to evacuate, but it's the price we pay for living near the coast.

 

[Lorije1]

I live in a mobile home about 20 miles from the Gulf, so I usually go to my parent's house unless it is just a Tropical Storm. My horse barn is there and survived Erin, Opal, IVAN, Dennis and Katrina with little damage... but I don't know if I would want to lock them up in there in case it did sustain major damage. SOOOO I guess that is probably going to put me getting some more kennels so I can keep them in the den at my folks

 

[dawg53]

I hear you Lorije1. You guys out there on the gulf coast have been hammered badly over the years. A friend of mine out on the Florida panhandle lost everything to Ivan. I live just north of Jacksonville and most of the hurricanes skirt our coast and slam into North Carolina or head back out to sea. We've had remnants from Charlie, Frances and Jeanne and one that hit Brunswick, Ga awhile back. Floyd was our biggest scare when everyone evacuated, except us. Frances was the one I put all my chickens in the garage. Luckily I found good deals on cages and dog crates on craigslist for my chickens. The biggest issue was matching up which hen was best to put with another hen so that wouldnt bicker/peck at each other. I did alot of mix matching and found out who gets along with who and it worked out.

 

[A.T. Hagan]

Frances and Jeanne hit my place back in '04 and for a while there it looked like Charley and Ivan would too so this is something that has been on my mind over the years.

I've got too many birds to evac them. They're just going to have to stay. But I have thought about how to protect them as best I can. My plan is to tie down all of the tractors. I'll drive two foot lengths of rebar on either side, probably two on one side one on the other. Tie a piece of stout rope to one piece, toss it over and tie it off again then back over to tie it off to the third length. I may use screw in ground anchors instead of rebar. With the rope tied down tight to deep set anchors they ought to take a lot of wind. Even our rowdiest thunderstorms have yet to nudge one so much as an inch with them not being secured to anything at all.

Bugging out is not part of our plan as we're too far inland for storm surges and on top of a rise so flooding is not a concern. But if it looks like a major hurricane (class three or above) is going to hit us square then we'd probably go. In that case I'll hang two tube feeders of whole grain in each tractor and double waterers which will give them enough feed and water to get by for at least a week before running out. Past experiences with tropical storms have shown me that with tractors at least nothing is going to keep a feeder of mash/pellets/crumbles dry but for a week it won't hurt them to live on corn and wheat. There will be plenty of other folks needing to get back in to take care of their livestock so I believe I'll be able to get by the roadblocks. I'm not in a built up area anyway.

 

[Steve_of_sandspoultry]

We are about 90 miles from the coast. the way they normally hit at the NC/SC state line it's much further. We just close ours up in the various chicken houses just as the rains are getting heavy - a couple hours before landfall. One of the things we have done over the years was to improve the housing to make sure there is enough room and we can close them in. The ducks and geese just ride it out. I think it was Floyd about 10 years ago or more but it was raining so hard there was about 18 inches of water on the ground in the storm. It wasn't from a stream or anything it was just raining that hard and the water had no place to go. All the Muscovy ducks were out swimming around having a grand old time. crazy ducks lol


Steve

 

[Buff Hooligans]

Everybody to the basement. Bring snacks.

 

[ranchhand]

We're 12-15 miles inland, south of Charleston, SC. This time of year is when I reduce the flock size a bit, so they will all fit in cages in the garage/shop, which is a separate building. When we had it built we made sure it had hurricane clips in the trusses.

Other than that, the dogs and cats will be crated inside, in a small hallway in the center of the house by the bathroom. We have plywood cut and labeled as to which window it goes on, plenty of water and other emergency supplies on hand.

And numerous cans of smoked oysters. I refuse to ride out a hurricane without smoked oysters!

 

[Joz]

I'm designing my coop to resist wind uplift on the roof. If we evacuate, all 5 will have to go in a carrier, or be shown the raised basement and porch and left to fend for themselves. If we stay at home, I'll put 'em in the raised basement during the windy/rainy part, and if it floods they can come up on the back porch until the water goes back down (our neighborhood took 4' after Katrina, but the house is raised 8').