The Evolution of Atlas: A Breeding (and Chat) Thread

[speckledhen]

I think this weather front was just very difficult to predict. When my husband got up at 3:45 a.m., it was 24*. It's 5:22 a.m. now and 22*. The high for today says 17* in spite of that. According to the hourly prediction below, it will go to 14*, then up a tad and hover until it begins to drop again at about 6 p.m. and through the night to 8* (or maybe 6-7* since the center of town is about 400 ft lower in altitude than our property). It's snowing to beat the band right now, already looks like an inch. It will be interesting to see how much actually accumulates with the winds howling and blowing it everywhere.
I plan to go to the barn about 8 a.m. to check everyone's water and give them their 14 grain scratch mix. I won't likely go back until late in the day to keep the heat in there. I hope no one gets frostbite. I'm just going to clean the worst poop off roosts and stir the shavings around, add to them maybe.
Zara sleeps in a basket type nest on the floor in the corner where Bash used to sleep (stack-able storage basket with one open side, full of hay and pine shavings) because the 250w infrared heat lamp is clamped above her head on the underneath side of the wall cage, tilted to send heat out into that front area of the pen. She knows it's warmest there. Smart old girl. She guards that nest like it's a fort, LOL. Maddie can't get too close to Zara in her special spot, or she risks losing an eye. That is too bad. Zara is the Queen of the Barn, my last Stukel descendant.

 

[Mother of Chaos]

3-4” here and still coming down hard. So far the girls haven’t come off their roosts.

It seems that denial is a thing among chickens, too!

 

[1muttsfan]

It's warmed up to a toasty 14 today, started off around 3. Forecast says maybe a high of 20 tomorrow!

We typically get 1- 3" snow every day or two this time of the year, in addition to whatever system snow blows through. It's kind of annoying to go out almost every morning and have to shovel one or two inches, but it is very lightweight fluffy cold snow so if you clean it up immediately it's very easy to shovel. If you leave it sit it gets gummy if the temperature warms up at all.