Danz, I am so sorry about your loss. It is hard NOT to get attached but it is always the special ones that break our hearts.
Tweety, I would love to see pics of your coop if you ever get to take a break from work. When I think of open air coops, I usually picture them with 3 solid sides and the front open - I did not realize yours only has one solid wall. What keeps the bedding from spilling out? Is there any way you can get some bales of straw to stack up on the east and west sides? My understanding is that 3 solid walls are the best way to keep the chill out, if the side walls are high/deep enough, that in the back they are out of air "flow", if that makes sense. I think JosieChick worked it out to be 10' when she was building her open air coops/pens. That seems to be about right for my sheep/goat shelter too. There is only a back (north) solid wall, so I built two side walls of hay bales, each of which is 12'. When I go into the shelter, the wind stops blowing and it is noticeably warmer in there, even though it is still open to the air.
I am also really concerned about Monday. I've lived places where it got to -40 (before wind chill) on a regular basis, and -20 was the forecast high for the day periodically throughout winter. But that was when my only pets were dogs and cats. They would go out to potty but come straight back in again at those temperatures! Now I have a bunch of animals that live outside full time and I'm concerned about their ability to survive such low temps. Inside my coop is completely sheltered from wind, but when they are all in there at the same time, it can get pretty crowded. I think I will give them a new bale of straw to work through on Monday morning. That will keep a lot of them too busy to get grouchy with each other. The DLM method is supposed to provide heat as the bedding layer composts, but I've never found it to work that way. Instead, when the temps get too low, the bedding layer tends to freeze. So adding fresh straw on top should help to keep them on bedding that is not yet frozen. I throw BOSS in every day around lunch time to encourage them to turn over the bedding and that works great up to a point, but at some point there is enough poop that although they are turning it over, all they are turning over is more poop saturated bedding. A fresh bale of straw should help in that regard.
Danz, the cord to my waterer was on the ground and it was fine while it was dry but when it defrosted a few days ago, the frozen ground turned to mud and I suspect that got in and shorted it out. I realized it right away and moved the cord to where it is held up off the ground. It is now completely dried out and DH cleaned it thoroughly too but in spite of that, it continues to short out every time it is plugged in. He even tried plugging it in a kitchen socket and we heard the GFCI trip as soon as he did. So I dunno….I would have thought even if it got wet initially, that drying and cleaning it would stop it shorting all the time.
