Update after the Polar Vortex/SNOVID Apocalypse Texas and the other southern states just experienced...
It could have been much worse at my house. I managed to keep the pipes from bursting so we had water up until the city shut it off due to breaks in water mains. So I was bucketing water out to everyone multiple times a day. The lowest it got here was -9 degrees Fahrenheit.
I lost some juvenile Orpingtons despite them being under heat lamps. I also lost Derek, my only White Orpington male. I moved all the girls back into the Silver-laced pen in the hopes that Hollywood does carry the Recessive White gene and I can produce some more Whites. It's going to set me back a whole year, and I have such a big waitlist on them. I have about 14 white eggs I'm going to set tonight after work. All the chicken eggs hatched in the incubator, including an egg that was a week late. The duck eggs didn't fare as well and I hatched one duckling. It is a complete pest, at the moment. It has some more siblings due at the end of the week and after candling I think six eggs are still good. I also lost some more Seramas, so I'm down to two trios. All the younger birds died even with heat on them and the adults. I also lost one of my older Silver-laced hens. I'm hoping that I don't lose anymore.
We lost water for four days so that was a huge pain in the rear. Power was inconsistent for about 24 hours due to rolling black outs. I know I should be grateful I didn't lose tons of birds like some of my friends who lost power and as a result lost all their chicks and eggs. But it is really a setback and frustrates me. It was so nice getting to water them with a hose yesterday. I'm preemptively medicating everyone due to the amount of wild birds that were swarming the fresh water and feed I was giving my birds. After that, they are all going to get treated for lice and mites, including the entire barn.
I'll post some pretty pictures of the snow in a bit.
