Growing my little flock

[2ndTink]

Awe, I hope you can help her get braver

 

[DonyaQuick]

First outdoor time for the boys in quite a while! Most of this month has been knee-deep snow with little paths carved in it to let me get to the enclosures. That mess finally melted this past week and then we got a much nicer light dusting - perfect conditions for the derp squad to go explore a bit.

And I have coop cams now! This has been both a blessing and a curse. The blessing is that it has let me spot some important problems, like a downed panel heater. The curse: I get to see all the weird stuff I didn't need to know about. And the bachelor flock is definitely up to the most weird stuff.

Weird stuff example #1: I don't know how, but these guys figured out that the camera is "me" and that this is what they should crow at when the auto door isn't opening soon enough (heaven forbid that I not let them them go charging straight out into -10F at the crack of dawn...).

Weird stuff example #2: hmm, where are my boys? Why are they not outside? Oh, it's because they found a massive freeze-dried turd stuck to a big piece of bark, have made a nest for it, and are taking turns sitting on it like an egg...

 

[lightm]

I have really enjoyed reading your thread! You have beautiful chickens and your love shows.

 

[DonyaQuick]

I have 35 chickens in my house! And they have officially been in the house for over 24h straight now. Outside temps were ugly, windy, negative numbers Fahrenheit for over 18 hours, and then it only explored above zero for a bit today while it was still light out. Brief plunges into negative numbers are normal here, but below zero for that long are unusual and daytime highs staying so low after that are also unusual.

I went out this afternoon to see if it was reasonable to put anybody back out since, as you can imagine, being stuck in a small space makes things get kind of crazy over time. Everyone always says if they're dry and draft-free they're fine even in -40 right? And mine even have supplemental heat so it should be fine...right? Well I was in my big shed coop checking it out and thinking indeed, it's draft-free and dry...and then I accidentally exhaled kind of vaguely in the vacinity of the bare hand that I was using to check out the temperature of the surfaces and my hand got STUCK TO THE WALL for a bit. It was very briefly like I'd licked my finger and stuck it on a metal pole, except it was just my breath and a slab of wood. So yeah...nobody went outside today. One step in a fresh wet poop and they would get glued to whatever surface they stepped on next. Total recipe for foot frostbite and nothing I can do about it.

Hopefully I can get everyone back out tomorrow...although first I'll have to dig my way out to their coops. I expect to wake up to knee deep snow again tomorrow if not deeper.

Meanwhile, main flock has almost a mini coop-and-run type setup. It's my brooder cube with a dog pen fence tacked on and a fitted sheet over the top. Sometimes the Ameraucana pullets are in there, but sometimes I have to remove them to another little setup to keep things calm. The Bean flock has a similar, although smaller enclosure since the cochins seem pretty content to just sit in a clump most of the day.

Bachelor flock, aka the derp squad, has so far been the absolute easiest to manage indoors...if I ignore the 5AM sonic blast of synchronized crowing lol. They're just chilling in my dog's old crate in a room where they can't see any of the hens.