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I am actually not home during the day and I do have a heated waterer. I don't really like it. I really want a top fill one but I haven't found one that I want to splurge on. I have only been home recently because of the holidays so I get up early and fill them and check after I get home. The heated waterer has been okay but sometimes there's ice around the edges.

My chickens are surviving too but they don't look happy either. I never thought I would be willing to settle for anything beside negative temperatures!

I remember potty training our pup 2 years ago but it wasn't this cold! Good luck!
 
My birds are not happy either. I'm having to pick piles of frozen poop out of the nest boxes. They hang out there during the day, and who can blame them? I kick them out at night, and any malingerers get snuggled on the perches with the rest of their buddies. I've kept the pop door closed all day for the past 3 days. Will go out today, and scoop some turdsicles from the bedding (I NEVER DO THAT) just to get a lot of it cleaned up before adding more bedding. I dumped a bag of leaves in there last week, and they are still a frozen block. So, I may be forced into dumping some shavings.

I had to bring in the heated waterer and it's stand last night b/c it had a moat of ice around the base of it on the wood stand, so I couldn't lift it up to clean it. REAL NICE! The base sitting beside my wood stove in the livingroom all evening so the mountain of turdsicles would melt enough to be scraped off. I love the ambience of a crackling fire accompanied by a mountain of chicken poop.

My flock is not eating well in this cold weather. So, at the urging of Beekissed, I have started taking them some hot mash several times/day. I've given up on fermenting their feed for now b/c it's just too cold. It won't stay thawed long enough for them to eat it. They seem to be doing better with the hot mash. I also started mixing in some multivitamins as of today.

I have several pullets who are going through partial molts. Never had a pullet molt in the winter before. I'm wondering if it's b/c they are loosing condition b/c appetite is down.

On the plus side, the temp in the coop got up to 25* during mid day yesterday. It may even get above freezing tomorrow.

Spring can't come fast enough.
 
:wee I'm doing my happy dance. I got out today and finished putting up the plastic on the south corner of the sun room for the girls. I had some extra plastic, so closed in part of the gable end there also. cleaned out a LOT of turdsicles from the coop. 4 buckets full. Got the dog poopsicles cleaned up from the paths so they won't be rattling through the snowblower when we clean up after the next blizzard. I had resigned myself to having to use shavings in the coop cause leaves were frozen. But, I found 6 bags that were nice and dry. So, 4 bags in the coop, 2 bags in the sun room. Girls are happy. They have some sprouts in both locations to work on. Their appetite is improved. I'm giving them multi vits just to help them through this Polar weather system. Sun room temp got up to 40* today. I knocked snow off green house roof. Temp there shot up from 40* to 60* just as soon as the snow came down.

Goliath has some frost bite on his comb. Hoping the warmer weather the next few days will help him heal. No signs of frost bite with any of the rest of the flock.
 

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