Help! Soaked to the bone

[deacons]

It's been raining steady all day. One hen looks like her feathers on her back got disturbed, like someone jumped on her back and rumpled her all up. She looks positively soaked through all over her body-almost like her protective "coating" on her outer feathers has stopped working...

It's going back down to the 20s F tonight. She'll be in a coop with 7 others, but is she going to be a Popsicle by morning? Should I try to towel her dry before she goes yo roost? She's at the bottom of pecking order, so I don't think it's good to remove her from the rest.

Please reassure me that snuggled up with the rest of the flock will get her through the night.

Should be dry and sunny, if cold, tomorrow.

 

[BantamLover21]

Does she feel really wet? It is not good for wet birds to be in the cold, so if she is soaked, I would dry her off in some way. Use a towel, or a hair drier on low. If it is possible to do so, you could also put a heat lamp in the coop above where she roosts. She doesn't have to be completely dry, but at least some of her feathers should be back to normal--snuggling with the other birds, she should be fine.

 

[ChickensAreSweet]

My chickens get soaked- completely soaked- all winter long as we get lots of rain here. If it dips into the 20s when they are soaked I turn on their light bulb. (I have it on a thermocube but often turn it off unless we get down to the 20s.) We can get nasty freezing fog here. My clothes get soaked quite often just being outside for 30 min. to do chicken chores.

If you don't have a nice dry tight coop then I'd definitely try to blow her dry with a hair dryer.

 

[deacons]

Yep, thus is not wet on the outer coat that they can shake dry. She's not trying to shake much ( the others are every few minutes)-but even when she does shake, she stays matted down

 

[deacons]

If you don't have a nice dry tight coop then I'd definitely try to blow her dry with a hair dryer.

Usually, I would say the coop is nice and dry...but...we had 18 inches of snow melt in one day when temps went up to the high 50s, and then today got probably an inch of rain on top of all that melt. One corner of the coop definitely was sitting in a puddle and water got in, and I pulled out as many of the wet shavings as I could today while standing in the pouring rain and trying not to make things even worse. Tomorrow, I'm going to strip shavings out and start over with bedding that I know is dry, as I think this strange warm spell is over for now.

Thanks to those who answered for jumping in with quick suggestions- I do love this site because people are so willing to help out others.