My fair weather chickens

[They Call Me Pete]

Well had our first snow (1.5") and temps are in the 40's during day and below freezing at night. I have seen my ladies only to eat/drink and the rest of the time the are in the coop. So much for cold hardy breeds

. At least coop was warm when I went down last night to collect the eggs. I can see some of my neighbors chickens but not all of them. Hey I can't blame them though it's 27 out right now and I'm by the woodstove

 

[teach1rusl]

Yeah...my girls want nothing to do with it either...lol!! I had one bare patch under a tarped area and I set a bowl of oatmeal there for them. Normally they come rushing out to get whatever treat I bring them. Only one braved our one inch dusting to make it to the oatmeal. Another joined her after watching her eat for a few seconds. The rest stood out on their chicken porch watching. I finally gave up and put the bowl on the porch, and then raked a little section away for them

I'm sure they'll venture out for a little while when it warms up a few degrees...

 

[gsim]

Mine are living up to their cold-weather reputation. 19 yest morning and they stampeded out like always when I raised the two pop door closers. They were out and about all day like any other day. Got 17 eggs from 24 pullets of 6 months age. Breeds are RIR, BR, Black Aussie, and Buff Comet. 24 this AM and they are at it again and out in their run. Mine do get lots of live greens tho, and have from day 1. They get enough that they only go thru 3 bags of feed in 28 days. That is not high consumption by any standard, and half of mine are real fatsos. They run like sumo wrestlers, kind of a high-speed waddle and look like they are on steroids.

 

[Amethyste]

Mine could really care less if its raining or sunny out... its like watching the 3 STooges every day when I open their door to let them into the run. Feathers flying everywhere.... mass crowding trying to get outside first...its quite funny.

Its icy and icky outside atm, 15 degrees right now at 9 am....(oops I mean 16 it looks like it went up lol) and they are all outside messing around eating their oatmeal and having a grand old time. Not fazed at all. And I have 3 pullets that keep inspecting the nesting boxes....hopefully they will give me a nice thank you pressie for the good care! Maybe....

 

[Uzuri]

Mine are fowl weather chickens.

Ba-da-bum!





Never act as you expect them to, do you? We had pouring rain at 38 degrees last week, and when I got home to put them in it was obvious that they'd played in the rain all day. They were sopping.

 

[OutInTheStiks]

We had about two inches of snow on Saturday morning. When I opened the pop door to the main coop, Omelettea and Chickenisha (black sex-links) went running down the ramp and just acted confused when they made it out onto the snow. KK (delaware) was the next chicken out the door. She spotted the snow and caused a 10 chicken pile-up at the top of the ramp. She pushed and shoved her way back into the coop with everyone else squawking their disapproval at the turn of events. As soon as the ramp was clear, the sex-links ran back up the ramp as quickly as possible. No one really ventured out until there were spots where the snow had melted in the chicken yard.

When I opened the bantie coop, the four bantie pullets all came to a screeching halt at the door before hopping out. It looked like four vultures peering down at a potential meal. They stared at the snow for several minutes before jumping down and making a mad dash for the patio where the snow had already melted.

Only the dogs seemed to enjoy the snow at our house.