Too odd that my weather in GEORGIA is as cold as yours will be. We're going down to about 5* with windchills around -15* on Wednesday overnight then two subsequent nights in the lower teens. Of course, I am at 2000 ft elevation in the mountains, but it's Georgia, for cripes sake.We have some white stuff and 17* right now. High winds are expected tomorrow with wind chill that could possibly be -20*!! Good grief!
This exact weather last year was when Isaac's arthritis caused him to sleep on the floor and get frostbitten toes. This year, we temporarily tacked large pieces of scrap plywood around the puter edges of the coops so wind can't easily just howl through under there and maybe the floors will stay a tad warmer; plus, we have a mixture of shavings and hay on the floors, warmer than shavings alone, and Ike's coop has two heat lamps, one 150w black nighttime reptile bulb pointing at his spot on the roost and another higher wattage red heat lamp pointing at where he would sleep if he fell off the roost and ended up on the floor. My old man has extra concessions I don't make for many other birds except 8 yr old arthritic Amanda who can't get off the floor. Naturally, one older hen in the opposite side of the coop from Isaac, one of Rex's hens, decided to do a full-on molt and she is barely covered so I had to add a heat lamp on that side, too.
I love my Brahmas. I want some good ones one day. Caroline, my hatchery Buff, is now 8 years old. Amazing old gal. They do so well in either heat or cold.
My roosters crowing doesn't bother me. I have a baby monitor broadcasting from the main coop into my master bedroom. Sometimes, they are especially vocal and just won't stop around 5 a.m., but I honestly don't mind. If it's too much, I turn it down all the way or off. I have seven roosters altogether, though two are the little D'Anvers in the furthest coop from the house and I barely hear them.
Hey, Mary, that was a good cat! I wasn't sure my newly adopted cat (he adopted us in November, not the other way around) was even catching anything. And after this event I recorded, I'm still not sure he's killing anything. DH rescued the mouse who was already injured and even kept trying to bite the cat, but Finn wouldn't finish it off. Maybe he'd already killed a few and brought this one home to play with, LOL. It does look like his fake mouse with electronic sound that we bought him and that he plays with in the house so maybe he thinks that's what he's supposed to do with a mouse.
