Floridachicken and Aggie
This is our 1st year of chicks and 1st time having severe weather with this coop. We had a terrible thunderstorm last night for about an hour with 20mph winds and 60mph gusts and the coop faired fine. The chicks spent the time running around their coop & run as I couldn't get them locked up before the storm hit. I had closed the windows earlier in preparation of putting them inside for the night. They went to bed as usual even during the storm. I went out after it had passed and they were huddled in the corner snuggled like always.
So DH doesn't want me to move the chicks in preparation for Irene - he insists they will be fine in their coop. They'll be six weeks old tomorrow. When I built the coop I didn't cement it into the ground b/c that makes it a permanent structure & they'll tax us for it and we have to have a permit to build it! So I buried the 4x4s 1' in the sandy soil and put cement in the blocks around the bottom. The run is buried 1' and not cemented in either. NOAA shows us at the outer left of the potential cone for now & there's a 60% chance of tropical storm conditions with a warning in effect for our area. I wanted to at least move them to the inner part of the large white shed next to it and put them in the temporary exercise pen I made for the little chicks. DH says it's not necessary that if the coop got blown away most likely it would blow into the white shed and damage it anyways. Then he said that the chicks will feel more comfortable in their "home" rather than together in a little 2x4 pen - what do you think? I'm thinking they'll be freaked no matter where they are at the time and I'd have more comfort with them in the white shed.
The coop front faces east. The white shed built in the 1950s has weathered MANY tropical storms and severe weather conditions - it's still standing so I trust it's sturdiness. Will the coop survive a tropical storm hit? Should I ignore DH's suggestion and put them in the shed anyway or is that worse for the chicks' stress level?
This is our 1st year of chicks and 1st time having severe weather with this coop. We had a terrible thunderstorm last night for about an hour with 20mph winds and 60mph gusts and the coop faired fine. The chicks spent the time running around their coop & run as I couldn't get them locked up before the storm hit. I had closed the windows earlier in preparation of putting them inside for the night. They went to bed as usual even during the storm. I went out after it had passed and they were huddled in the corner snuggled like always.
So DH doesn't want me to move the chicks in preparation for Irene - he insists they will be fine in their coop. They'll be six weeks old tomorrow. When I built the coop I didn't cement it into the ground b/c that makes it a permanent structure & they'll tax us for it and we have to have a permit to build it! So I buried the 4x4s 1' in the sandy soil and put cement in the blocks around the bottom. The run is buried 1' and not cemented in either. NOAA shows us at the outer left of the potential cone for now & there's a 60% chance of tropical storm conditions with a warning in effect for our area. I wanted to at least move them to the inner part of the large white shed next to it and put them in the temporary exercise pen I made for the little chicks. DH says it's not necessary that if the coop got blown away most likely it would blow into the white shed and damage it anyways. Then he said that the chicks will feel more comfortable in their "home" rather than together in a little 2x4 pen - what do you think? I'm thinking they'll be freaked no matter where they are at the time and I'd have more comfort with them in the white shed.
The coop front faces east. The white shed built in the 1950s has weathered MANY tropical storms and severe weather conditions - it's still standing so I trust it's sturdiness. Will the coop survive a tropical storm hit? Should I ignore DH's suggestion and put them in the shed anyway or is that worse for the chicks' stress level?
