Had a rough day ... thanks for the verbal hugs!!

[kodiakchicken]

Hang it there, Tori. I know how this cold wears on a body, but you'll get through it. We're all rooting for you and your flock.

Maybe we need to start a BYC Alaska coop heating bill collection?

Our coop is still without a roof after having to cut the tarp off when it blew over. Hopefully we can get down and get some lumber before the weekend. I haven't even tried to heat the coop because of that. Another one of those "heating the arctic with a candle" situations.

We're sitting at 17 degrees this morning, which is 5 degrees warmer than yesterday but still extremely cold for Kodiak. When I went out last night and realized the ducks had put themselves to bed (which they NEVER do) I realized how much this weather is affecting them. The chickens are pretty much hanging out in their bedroom. I'm terrified of putting a heat lamp in there after the coop rollover. If there had been one in there then a fire would have been imminent.

My ducks haven't laid for the last couple months and with the weather and all the moving between the garage and coop, the chickens are down to about 3 eggs a day from their normal 5.

Snowy - what are the temps running up your way? I'm able to follow the Anchorage, Valley and Fairbanks temps, but not yours.

Tori - I just had a thought. Is it possibe to nail blankets around the inside walls of your coops? I don't know if that would work or if you even own enough blankets to do such a thing

but it's a thought. I'll keep trying to come up with wacky ideas - maybe one of them will pan out.

Oh, I know - how about sacrificing a caribou hide for the floor of each coop? Hahaha - if only we could all afford to do such a crazy thing.

Hang it there everyone. The cold will break eventually and we'll all crawl out of our winter shelters and help each other in rebuilding our losses.

Erin

 

[Lunachick]

Quote:
This might sound dumb, but does a duck lay eggs daily like a chicken or are they on a different schedule? My daughter happened to ask me last night and I couldn't answer her.

 

[Rare Feathers Farm]

Quote:
This might sound dumb, but does a duck lay eggs daily like a chicken or are they on a different schedule? My daughter happened to ask me last night and I couldn't answer her.

My Muscovies & Cayugas are more seasonal layers than my chickens--which tend to lay year 'round. My ducks start about in April or May and lay through September. As soon as it gets frosty out, they quit for four or five months.

 

[Lunachick]

Thanks Equibling, now I'll sound smart later when I give her an answer!

 

[Mrs MIA]

I was hoping to see eggs from my ducks at least late summer, but nothing this first year. They all hatched in March. I don't know if that was a sign or not.

Boy, those are all great ideas, Erin! LOL! I swear, though, their poopies freeze in about 5 minutes flat, and with over 25 birds in there, I'm going to have a doozy of a time shoveling out the coop when it thaws. I tried throwing scratch out there for them to keep turning it themselves, but it's frozen solid. I'm thinking that if I ever have to build another coop, I WILL insulate the floor. Both of my coops are on skids, so the floor is open to the cold temps, and even with thick litter it's bad.

I know it will break soon... it has to...
If you want to see what the weather conditions are in my backyard, go here That's my weather station.

(It's showing snow for Thursday - Monday!!!

)
If you see Sterling on the Anchorage Mesonet , that's my station, too.

 

[luvmygirlsinAK]

Mrs. AK-Bird-Brain :

I know it will break soon... it has to...
If you want to see what the weather conditions are in my backyard, go here That's my weather station.

(It's showing snow for Thursday - Monday!!!

)
If you see Sterling on the Anchorage Mesonet , that's my station, too.

That's funny, Tori, I clicked on your link, and my temp. that automatically shows up on my computer immediately jumped from _45 F. to _20 F. Which is what the temperature said right then for Sterling, while our thermometer outside reads -45 F. Wishful thinking, I guess!! That's weird that it did that!!!! We're down to 2 vehicles now-it is soooo dangerous to drive them in this weather, the hoses break at these temperatures-which is exactly what broke on the van-we're waiting for the temps. to raise, so we can fix it ourselves, an easy fix-so that we don't have to pay someone else $150.00 to fix it when the part costs only $8.00!!

if only it would warm up fast!!! I need my van!!!! My husband said when he got to work today, the ice fog was so bad that you could hardly see the cars parked in the parking lot!!! Keep warm and safe!!! It's got to change-soon!!

 

[Rare Feathers Farm]

I must have missed this--but how is your little D'Uccle doing??

 

[Mrs MIA]

Quote:
That's funny, Tori, I clicked on your link, and my temp. that automatically shows up on my computer immediately jumped from _45 F. to _20 F. Which is what the temperature said right then for Sterling, while our thermometer outside reads -45 F. Wishful thinking, I guess!! That's weird that it did that!!!! We're down to 2 vehicles now-it is soooo dangerous to drive them in this weather, the hoses break at these temperatures-which is exactly what broke on the van-we're waiting for the temps. to raise, so we can fix it ourselves, an easy fix-so that we don't have to pay someone else $150.00 to fix it when the part costs only $8.00!!

if only it would warm up fast!!! I need my van!!!! My husband said when he got to work today, the ice fog was so bad that you could hardly see the cars parked in the parking lot!!! Keep warm and safe!!! It's got to change-soon!!

That IS funny... I wonder why it did that? Sheesh... here I am wishing for 0F, and you're probably wishing for MY temps! LOL! Hey! You're cold enough you can throw a cup of boiling water in the air and watch it go *poof!*. I wanna try that! You guys be careful... ice-fog warning in your area until tomorrow morning. I remember when I was working on the slope, the diesel trucks were left running 24/7. We were working round the clock, so we'd just get out of our vehicle, still running, and hand it off to the next shift. To this day I cannot stand the smell of diesel exhaust on a cold day. bleh.

Equibling... sadly, we had to put little Chip down. His feet got really infected and were turning green.

It literally happened overnight, so there was no way to catch it. We still have Tyson, though, and I will be incubating more eggs when the girls give up on their little strike.

 

[luvmygirlsinAK]

Well, something's funny! I clicked on different weather reporting stations in our area, and they all say _45 F. and then I clicked on MSN weather for this area and it says _23 F. for 6:00 p.m. which is what my computer now says, but it says _40 F. for 9:00 p.m. tonight, and _23 F. for midnight tonight. It says that it was _43 F. earlier today. What a fluke! It's funny that the change just so happened when I clicked on Sterling AK earlier! Really weird!

Our thermometer still reads _45 F. lol!!!

All of the other weather stations show humidity at 30 something, and msn shows humidity at 60 something, which, when I clicked on Sterling, it shows humidity at 60 something as well! What a hoot!! I actually changed the weather on MSM!!

Oops, now it just changed to _44 F. on my computer! lol!!

My daughter just came home from work, she says you can hardly see 2 feet in front of you, there is so much ice fog!! Glad she made it home safely, now we're just waiting for my son and SIL and my husband to make it home safely!!

Yeah, _20 F. sounds pretty good right about now! lol!

 

[Mrs MIA]

Oh man... that's nuts! Two feet?!?

Oh, but I love to go out on a sunny day after a good ice fog and take pictures of the trees. Especially down by the river.

We are sitting at -27.9°F, 69% humidity. Breeder coop says 10.9F, with 55% humidity.
Hubby just help me put more lights up in the breeder coop because my Dorkings finally succumbed to the cold and developed frostbite on their combs. The two males have SPECTACULARLY huge combs, and I've been watching them like a hawk. And, as is typical, it happened during the night because first rounds I look in on them and my poor Duke has blisters on his comb. So I rush him inside to warm up, then back to check on Jake. Yep, him too... and Kate... dammmitttt.... so I brought all 3 in to warm up, slathered with ointment, went back out to slather the other 3 girls... yep, they're starting to show signs too.

I guess they can handle 10°F just fine... just not 2 weeks straight. So dear hubby came home with more lamps for me so each pen now has a lamp for them to huddle under. They're not 250w bulbs... that would make my electricity meter spin off the box!... but at least they keep the general vicinity of the roost warm. No one else is having problems now. The layers haven't seen the light of day for 10 days now.

Oh, and to top it off, we went out to put a bigger light on the mallards, and I found one little girl that had gotten a baseball sized clump of ice and poopies stuck to her abdomen. It high-centered her so she couldn't move!! So, we brought them all in to thaw out a little, too, and closed up their house. If they're too stupid to stay inside, we'll have to make them stay inside.