Humidity-sometimes ya just can't beat it.

[aart]

We've had 2 weeks of below freezing (-8 to 20F) temps and 2-3 feet of snow.
Sunday it eased into the mid 20's-30 and yesterday it climbed into the 40's with some drizzle and stayed there overnight, today it climbed to 55 with light rain. The snow is 'steaming', snow melt rains from the eaves.

This is what I saw when I walked into the coop this morning:

Then I looked up:

No, the roof is not leaking(tho that always flashes across my mind when this happens a couple times a year)...that is condensation, on the 1x roof boards from snow on north roof and warm moist air everywhere.
BTW... The 15 birds on their ~3' high roosts are protected from any dripping by cardboard on the 7' coop ceiling.

My coop shed has pretty darn good ventilation, ~10sqft at each 3 eaves, 2 lower and 1 higher, air should move good, huh? But when the humidity is 90+%, not much to do. All that snow is about gone, except for the piles which are much reduced.

Temps are supposed to plummet tonite, dropping from 56F at 7pm to 32F at 10pm, high of 26F tomorrow with precipitation to continue thru the afternoon. Already have some frostbite, I expect to see more by morning. Temp range for the next week is 9F to 26F.....then another warm up.

 

[lazy gardener]

That humidity is tough. Almost better to have the dry bitter cold than the high humidity that accompanies a thaw. It got up to 45 today. Coop is on damp side, but not wet. Hoping the temp moderates before plunging into the negatives again. Silly girls were still out playing when it was almost dark tonight. I had to coax them in. I've turned off the auto door for now, until temps can be somewhat predictable.

 

[aart]

Aart, you lost 2 to the weather??? Wow. That is rough. Who's left?

One that died was a CCL pullet, was suffering from the cold, lethargic for a few days.... I should have brought her in sooner. SMH<kick!>

Older hen was brought in after a day of lethargy for a few hours, gave her and the rest of the flock some savachik and she perked right back up.

Another older hen who had something wrong with her throat for a year or more, she made croaking sounds frequently, but was active and laid, died in the night a couple days after the savachick dose.

Livestock/deadstock....sometimes we can help, other times not.
15 birds remain 7 hens, 7 pullets, 1 cockerel.
All the pullets seem good, couple of hens are molting medium hard.
<crossesfingers>

 

[aart]

Maybe try a dehumidifier. There's one on Amazon for $50 that works for 1,000 sq. ft.

They put out heat, too

Can't de-humidify the whole world
...open eaves make de-humidification and heating moot, not to mention a waste of electricity.

Roof boards look pretty darn dry this morning, floor is dry, bedding is still kinda damp. No horrible frostbite happened overnight.
Ice then snow overnight, windy and cold and still pretty damn humid today.
Internet is glitchy and computer needs some serious maintenance and my phone's out and bad knee is worse which make sit hard to do anything and ...it's been a crappy week, hope things start coming back together soon.<whineover> My main task today is to try and get the new bag of feed out of the van, over the ice/snow and into the coop without falling on my butt.

 

[aart]

Last week we were -26 Fahrenheit, I am terrible with converting F to C...

-26F = -33C

I have a nifty little freeware conversion program made years ago,
don't think it's available any longer.
Lots online tho...just key in F to C on google.

 

[aart]

Aart, that's quite a lot of water up there.

It's NuckinFutz! Probably 100% humidity, snow was fogging all day, when the rain let up.

 

[Welshies]

Ahhh you are all making me so wistful. It is -43° Celsius here this morning.

 

[Welshies]

Last week we were -26 Fahrenheit, I am terrible with converting F to C...

-43°C is -45° Fahrenheit I believe.

 

[casportpony]

Temps are supposed to plummet tonite, dropping from 56F at 7pm to 32F at 10pm, high of 26F tomorrow with precipitation to continue thru the afternoon. Already have some frostbite, I expect to see more by morning. Temp range for the next week is 9F to 26F.....then another warm up.

hope your flock is okay!

 

[lazy gardener]

Aart, you lost 2 to the weather??? Wow. That is rough. Who's left?