Shadrach's Ex Battery and Rescued chickens thread.

[Mother of Chaos]

@Mother of Chaos, how much snow did you end up with?

Up the mountain, it snowed 36 hours, 15" total, and has stayed under 25F/-4C since Friday night.

The biggest snow and longest extended cold since we've had chickens. Here's what we woke up to 12 hours into it. No way chickens were coming out of the coops!

View attachment 4292257

Except when Peck needed to lay an egg. She and Lil Nugs are bunking in Andre's heated coop, but she lays her eggs in this little coop. She headed straight through the drifts even though I made paths.

View attachment 4292258

I actually returned to check Peck made it back okay. When she heard me, she ran down the ramp and walked through the drifts back to Andre's.

Her egg was already cold, so I think she'd been waiting for an escort through this silly powdery stuff. Andre's usually game, but he was stationed by the heater to keep his wattles from freezing off.

View attachment 4292259

I blew snow out of the runs with a battery blower every couple hours. It blew back in just as quickly, but it was good to keep it from piling up as much, and easy to blow out one final time yesterday when the snow stopped so they have plenty of dry ground to walk on, since the snow won't be gone for several days.

Merle's Girls are by far the least excited about cold. Merle had his comb buried in Plumbus' chest before this pic was snapped. That's smart because he and Andre struggle with frostbite.

View attachment 4292260

On a whim, I gave the tall-comb guys a sprinkle of turmeric over oats to increase circulation. Merle wouldn't eat spicy orange oats, but Andre did, and his comb doesn't have purple tips for once! Merle's comb and wattles began to turn colors before I installed extra emergency heaters.

Stilton says, "No wattles, no cry." Napping beauties in their heated coop.
View attachment 4292261

A balmy 34F/1C forecast today. With sun and no wind, it will feel nice.

Here in the city, we would up with 7" or so. Hard to tell exactly because the winds had rearranged the snow so much!

It was 4° this morning. It's supposed to get up to the mid-thirties today - we'll see.

 

[Mother of Chaos]

I am not home to see the snow in person but the hubs tells me we got almost a foot in western NC mountains. Lost my little silver Leghorn cockerel during the night and I’m sure it had something to do with the cold but can’t ask hubs to do a necropsy so I’ll probably never know.

I'm so sorry!