I've been mostly lurking so will pop in with an update, especially since snow and single digits here in east Tennessee are making it prudent to stay indoors near the computer.
@Shadrach, hope your day off was nice and the cake was good.
After 3 days of frigid weather, tomorrow's highs in the upper 30°sF/3C will feel like a tropical front. People in colder climates may not think it's a big deal, but the humidity + rarity of this weather here make it highly inconvenient. We spent a long, tiring day winterizing the property before the front moved in, to an extent only necessary every couple years. Then it's maintenance mode: prattling back and forth with unfrozen water all day in 2 pairs of everything.
Since the last cold this severe knocked out our apiary, and I've since come across a compelling article about the benefits of hive insulation, we even wrapped our hives this time (they have more ventilation than they appear to in this photo, btw).
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Fortunately we've had weeks of cold already, so the chickens are more acclimated than past years when cold fronts swept in on the heels of 70°F days (east TN is known for drastic thermal shifts). But when 9" of snow are blowing sideways with temps at 15°F/-9C, most still opt to stay in the coops by the heaters.
Except, of course, the 10-month Speckled Sussex girls and our one bearded Easter Egger, Carrots, who has always been a snow bird. Every day is a sunny summer Saturday for them! I made a video:
Andre is perfectly happy to stay under cover, which is good because his tall comb is prone to frostbite. When I'm not out there, I close his baes into the run so he doesn't have to get snowed on watching over them. They tire him out.
Note the end of the video where Merle & girls are wandering back to their coop. They detest cold weather, but something spooked them out of the coop, so Merle led them out through the weather to the hoop canopy for the afternoon. I had to go convince them the coop was safe

If you look hard at this picture, you can see the Speckles out in the snow in the background.
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