All, Thank you so much for your suggestions and comments - all very much appreciated. Some good ideas for future events. Excellent point about why to leave doors open; I never thought about the quick escape necessity.
For this event, this is what I've done thus far --- spent the day moving junk around to pile it higher and wider along the walls in the spare bedroom that is not a bedroom, but a junk storage room since we have no closet space here.
Then I set up the 4x4 ft dog pen in the middle - this barely gives me enough room to squeeze in and open the door to the pen. It's really meant for outside, not really a chicken pen as the squares are 3"x4" and they can walk right through which I discovered after quarantine for the pullets when I picked them up from the post office!! So I wrapped the dog pen with Xpens around the outside of it and zippy tied the xpens to the dog pen. For some reason I bought a bag of zippy ties the last time we were at
Wal-Mart just to have on hand for whatever - that was before we knew about this storm.
Then, I took straw like beach mats (think beach towel only you can shake the sand off) and wrapped those around the Xpens for a sense of security so they don't get freaked out by the sensory overload factor of all the junk piled up everywhere.
Been working on this since Noon and I'm plumb exhausted. So time for a break.
Tomorrow I will work on the "ground" of the pen by adding a tarp from the run, cover it with coastal hay I no longer use in the run, followed by a ton of pine shavings. I will add the canvas tarp to cover the entire dog pen so they can't fly out or perch on the top or injure themself by having access to the room. I will figure out the food and water thing but that is the least of my worries now. I'll also bring in their favorite stool from the run - it's familiar and will give them a place to perch. Space will be tight, but hey, they are chickens, right?
I still have all the outside work to do tomorrow securing stuff, which shouldn't take but an hour or two, removing all items from the run, further securing the coop somehow, remove all tarps and pluck the girls out from the coop at dusk as they roost and bring them inside. I think it will probably be raining by then so I will have to pluck them out and bring them earlier as necessary but I am feeling better that they will have a secure place indoors.
I have to be super careful because we have a crazy 100 lb nervous anxious dog - just the way he's made - and thunderstorms really wig him out so this will be interesting. The vet prescribed anxiety meds for him but they send him into orbit so they have the opposite effect they're supposed to.
Yes, I am grateful we only have 3 chickens.
I can't imagine dealing with forest fires. That's scary.
We used to live in the woods on 15 acres "back home" in tornado alley but we had a basement to run to, which I did often. I grew up with tornados and those too are scary.
Here is my biggest concern of all -- the orpington and astralorp - both 5 months old, sort of go at each other, the BO chases the BA who spends her time running away, which is my que they need to forage again, so I let them out for an hour or two, then back in - several times a day. They have me trained well.
The Comet just avoids it all and stays out of the way.
I'm concerned with the extreme confinement, someone is really going to get hurt. I've never seen a chicken fight but I guess I'll take the actual dog crate for our dog away from him and isolate a chicken in it if needed. I wish there was a chicken anxiety drug I could give them to chill them out. I'll use this confinement as an opportunity to do health checks.
We should be ok in terms of flooding but we have a water run off drainage ditch right next to the house which turns into a raging river during heavy rain so as long as that doesn't flood over we should just have to deal with yard flooding. We are considered inland but only by about 3 miles as the crow flies. We are not required to evacuate and my heart goes out to those who must. We are also in a solid structure, not a mobile home, so I am grateful for that.
Once I'm done with the preps I'll post another pic for anyone who may have further suggestions. Thank you all again for your comments and ideas.
Here's to a good nights sleep
---- or not.
