Stupid Florida Weather! Coop Flooded BAD with no end in site HELP HELP

[firerunner]

Here is my coop today

Completely flooded INSIDE their coop and the outside run has about 5 inches in it. I am sick and tired of rain and what is it doing now..raining!!


I have 30 birds ranging in age from 4 years to 4 months in those two coops (there is actually two coops cause i have two roosters) and it is suppose to rain ALL week.

I just want to cry

Hubby put planks in for the birds to use but they were not impressed and pretty much stayed on top of the nesting boxes and roost all day.

Are my birds going to end up sick from this? Should I be proactive and start them on antibiotics or just wait and hope they don't get sick?

Any idea what we can do? We are banging our heads on the wall trying to figure out how to get them out of the water. These are not small coops. They are insulted and drywalled with floors etc. I am so upset.

Argh we have never seen it flood like this.

Will they be okay as the weather works it way out?

 

[Granny Hatchet]

Oh my ! I would tell you to add sand but Its Florida ! wow. You cant even put that machine to work right now digging a trench. No place to move them til the water is gone ? Check their feet when its over for bumble foot. sores, black spots ,ect... so sorry, beautiful coop..

 

[firerunner]

No idea what we are going to do, it stopped raining hubby is out with a flashlight checking the damage AGAIN.

Hell we cant even get down our laneway


This is our bridge to nowhere under water

and our laneway just on the other side of the bridge

and it pretty much still looks like that..

I am so frustrated I can handle the laneway and bridge...I cannot handle my birds getting sick, I am worried to death. We have never seen flooding like this and the rain just keeps coming.

 

[Granny Hatchet]

what part of Fl. are you in ? I have family around spring hill . Are you stuck at home then? Such a beautiful place , even under water. Insurance co .is not going to be happy.

 

[firerunner]

We are in Central Florida and this year Tampa Bay to Orlando is getting hammered by rain. It never quits.

As for insurance well this is florida and insurance is funny here, these are considered Out- buildings and are not covered by flood insurance.

Hubby and a couple of guys that work for us are out there raising the two coops up. So at least the chickens will have a dry floor. Their run has about 6 inches of water in it, so we are not sure what we are going to do with that. He made a call to get some dirt but just not sure yet. I pray we get no more rain.



I do wild life rehab and it is not unusual for me to have a few animals in our home but when I mentioned bringing in all 30 chickens I think I made my husband panic LOL.

 

[Folly's place]

What a mess! If they have a dry floor, maybe with shavings as bedding, it should be okay. Never mind the run for now, but try to plan for regrading, raising the surface, dry stream beds, or whatever will fix this situation before the next event. I wouldn't add antibiotics at this time. Good luck! My barn and outbuildings are covered (but no flood insurance) under my farm policy. Can't have homeowners, must have a farm policy instead. Mary

 

[firerunner]

They have BOTH coops out of the water!! The one you see at the front houses Nugget and His girls (14 of them) and Gandolphs Coop and his girls (10 of them) (cant see in the pics but it is at the back) is also out of the water. I am thrilled!! And so are the chickens!!! hubby said they were already on their floors looking around at the mess. Now they are cleaning them out and we are just going to add some nice straw for now and keep it cleaned the next few days, so we can watch for mold.

In Nuggets coop you walk in and there is storage where we kept the food, scratch etc..all that is ruined. And there is still about 6 inches of water inside the runs. I will grab another pic when I go out today.

I am starting to feel better , I havent seen my birds in a few day because you have to walk through about 6 to 8 inches of water to get to their coop but hubby has been keeping an eye on them. I bugged hum today with questions

"are their eyes clear, wattles cones look good, peek at their feet please " LOL

I will have hubby grab some new pics today!

 

[firerunner]

A few pics I took a min ago - i couldnt get a good pic of gandolphs coop because you have to walk thru Nuggets to get to his and its just to messy

With Boots on I was able to get into Nuggets coop a couple of them have some pale cones but I am thinking it is stress. Poop all looks good. The guys put out planks so the chickens could walk along them and get out of the coops as you see a couple of birds are using them. but most are inside.

I will be glad when they are dry!

 

[Granny Hatchet]

I am glad you husband was able to get them up out of the water. Pretty stumped on how that happened though.

No matter, they are out. A coop on stilts ! LOL

 

[firerunner]

Stumped on how the flooding happened?

Well see mother nature decided that central florida was going to be the target this year

and day after day after day it has rained. Flooding on the interstates (two weeks ago I-275 in tampa was closed) homes flooded etc. We are saturated, then couple of days ago she decided to be a real B and dumped 6 inches on us..in two hours.

Our saturated ground said enough, our coop sits in a low spot in our yard but in 15 years we have NEVER flooded.

We are actually fortunate at least our home is not flooded (for now but they are calling for more severe storms) many people are not as fortunate as we are.

As for lifting the coop (if you referrred to that) our coop is really a custom built home for our chickens, dry walled, insulted, floor, cement footer to keep gators and other critters out so the guys used a hydraulic jack and lifted each corner about 5 inches to get their actual coop out of the water and then they stuck blocks or something under it. (not sure what since I wasn't out there) . Hubby says there will be some repairs needed to the coop (footer was damaged ) once the water recedes but for now their actual coop is out of the water with fresh sand and straw and they actually look happy!!

Presently they are dumping a load of soil into the run, in hopes it is enough to get the run out of the water, when all is said and done our coop will look like it is sitting on a little island lol but the chickens will be safe.

I cannot predict the weather, and we have never seen flooding like this not even in 2004 when we got hit by 4 hurricanes but we will do everything we can to make sure our hens and roosters are safe and healthy. I wish we could predict the future for I would have either placed this somewhere else our built it all up!!!! LOL