Oh my gosh! I'm so sorry! What a mess. Having been through something that devastated the farm, I know how difficult and heartbreaking it is. We didn't get any rain at all yesterday. I hope you find your chicks!
I am sorry I can't return everyone's calls today but we had a severe hail storm here and have extensive damage.
I had just started feeding everyone when I noticed the change in barometric pressure. I heard the roar long before the storm hit us and was very upset to see my Marans had not gone into their coop.
You can see the amount of hail on the swing and ground. I was horrified to see one try to make a dash for another bush and fall under the hail stones. But after it was over, a mere 20 minutes later, we went out and surveyed the damage.
This is the reason the Marans knew not to go into the tractor.
The hail was huge and deep and our farm did not fare well.
Amazingly, my BLRWs in this pen survived. The canvas on the side showed not a minute bit of damage but the PVC on all my tractors roofs and sides is shredded much like this. There is damage on 2 sides of our home, Terry's old Honda and my car port. No windows broken but all my screens are tore to pieces and the molding around the windows in my kitchen are gone.
My trampoline pen was messed up a bit but easily fixed with Terry and Leah's help. No cuts in the material, just popped stitches so I saved the Guineas from having to be moved.
Sadly, I can not find 2 of the 4 Mottled chicks, 2 weeks old, that the Silkies were raising. They could be under all the leaves and limbs in the pen or washed away from the torrential rushing water that followed.
I lost a black Muscovy hen that was in breeding with my lavenders. She had severe head trauma and died shortly after we found her. We also had to put down a Saxony girl who had a broken leg.
Terry went out of our gates a while ago to go to the store and checked on our Mockingbird that nests in the dogwood every year there. She was on her nest with her wings spread out and had perished in the storm. He is totally heartbroken. My animal loving husband is such a softie. He was almost in tears.
There are not many water containers left that are not demolished. Six of my seven 5 gallon water containers are busted to pieces.
Thank goodness the Lord saw fit to keep me from putting out my chicks today and my other penned birds that are in easy access pens. They would have died.
I have tons of photos of the damage. It has been a horrid afternoon but at least we are okay. And strangely enough, the power never even blinked.
I LOVE it. The humidity pump is awesome..I don't have to even remotely worry about the temp/humidity anymore. And it's so quiet! I have 15 olive eggers in there, along with 5 white call duck eggs. Keeping my fingers crossed that I'll have a good hatch! The olive eggers were shipped and I know call ducks can sometimes be difficult to hatch, so we shall see! I also have 5 BB red OEGB eggs and 2 blue orpington eggs set to hatch this thursday. yay!
