We finally got enough Lake Effect Snow to accumulate last night so there was about an inch or so on the ramp when I let the girls out this morning. Normally they come charging out as soon as I open the pop door because I dump 24 hrs of accumulated kitchen scraps at the bottom of the ramp. This morning, however, the first ones out hit the snow and stopped. This created a humongous chicken jam. These first birds tentatively stepped in the snow and, after much consternation, went down the ramp, allowing those behind to sample this new event, but the process was slow. Normally by the time I go around to the people door and begin my morning chores of filling the water and feeders and collecting eggs the coop empties. Not this morning. Some birds did not go out at all and most that went out returned, milled around underfoot, then went back out. All the time they collected in little groups and there was much discussion about what this new phenomenon might be. There was a constant "baaawk", that low, drawn out, soft sound that they make when they're discussing things. (I actually think they use that sound to cover up their whispers so we humans can't figure out what's going on.) It was a riot to listen to them. I suspect they were saying "Oh cripe, now we're gonna have to put up with this for the next 6 months."--same as the rest of us do. Of course the sun came out and, eventually, the snow melted so things were right in their world again for a little while at least.
Ha ha ha, too funny! I look forward (kind of) to experiencing my first chickens experiencing their first snow... won't be long now.
We should be getting our first snow tonight &, darn it, I have to work tomorrow (leave at 5:30am), and won't see their reaction! I'm sure my kids will tell me all about it....
We only get snow once a year, and it lasts for a few days. It'll be interesting to see what our chickens think of it... Woodmort... I bout died laughin when you mentioned the pile up... I can see something like on a cartoon
Funny. I had to "rescue" my free-ranging girls who were "trapped" by a heavy dusting of snow between their bushes and the run last winter. They were pretty sure that they'd die if they touched the stuff with their feet.
Last winter we had a lot of heavy snow with accumulation. Chickens were barn-bound. Or so we thought. One time when we were snowed in our neighbor finally got around to plowing us out about 5:00PM, it was pretty much dark. We seized that opportunity to go to the grocery and went out to the car, got in, and swung the car around. In the headlight beam was one of our Golden Pencilled Hamburg hens, Potpie. For some reason she had decided to hoof it up to the house from the barn, a distance of about fifty yards. How the heck she got all the way to the house, and why she decided to, we have no idea, but she was up to her stomach in snow, and there she stayed. Couldn't move at all. She certainly was relieved when we rescued her! (So were we!) Spent the night in deep straw in a warm pen and she was ok next day, but she sure didn't try that again!
Hahaha I wish my girls were that brave, they stayed in the coop too scared to go outside, and bickered all day about what that strange stuff was . The funny thing was I had my camera already to record them in the snow for there first time but they never stepped foot on it
My six-month olds experienced snow for the first time several days ago. The hens exited their coop into their covered pen, but usually try to rush the gate when I'm bringing in their feeders. No one was tempted when they saw the snow. The two cockerels are required to march from their section of the coop across open space to their pen adjoining the hens every morning. However, upon discovering that the ground was covered with an inch of highly suspicious white stuff, the Black Cochin solved it by flying the ten feet to the covered safety of his pen, while the other would only walk through the frozen stuff, being a Brahma and not given readily to low-level flight, with the lure of a hand full of raisins.
