Virginia

[Maggiesdad]

3° in Gum Spring.

 

[MistyMountain]

18 in Botetourt Co. Found this under the roost. Do white soft eggs turn yellow when they freeze or do I have an ee laying? I also found a mini blue egg in the box. Wooo!

 

[Mtn Laurel]

0 degrees in my neck of Prince William Co. early this morning but we're now at a whopping 14. Woo-Hoo! Must be spring!

We also had a frozen soft-shelled egg found in the coop floor this morning. I think this intense cold has them a bit befuddled although they seem to be handling it well, are eating, drinking, no frostbite [fingers crossed].

Made one of those cookie tin water heaters last year and was amazed to find that the water wasn't frozen this morning. The tin doesn't even feel warm to the touch in this type of cold but apparently it's warm enough to keep the water from freezing, for which I'm thankful.

 

[choptank330]

We are sitting at about 17 right now in Bedford Soo cold.. I am quite ready for spring.

I brood my chickens in my garage, So by weeks I usually put them out in the coop, and they seem to do fine. Now I am not quite sure about silkies. I don't raise them. I only have one and she is almost a year old, I got her when she was about 6 months. I put her on the roost pole in between two other chickens to make sure that she stays warm

 

[ki4got]

18 in Botetourt Co. Found this under the roost. Do white soft eggs turn yellow when they freeze or do I have an ee laying? I also found a mini blue egg in the box. Wooo!

ee's lay blue-green eggs, not yellow, but even so, if there's no shell on it you an't tell what color it would be... what you're probably seeing is the frozen ruptured yolk coloring it.

 

[Cknldy]

Gave the last of the scratch last night. Will definitely be sliding my way down the driveway to the feed store today! I think the next time I pick up BOSS I'll save some to grow this summer since it costs more than scratch does. Gotta keep my chicken friends toasty warm at night after all Things to change for next winter: have a winter poultry barn!!!! Extra waterers to do the exchange of frozen ones, load up 2 or 3 months worth of feed prior to the worst months, plenty of scratch/boss when it isn't as expensive in direct winter. Anyone else? My list changes every year as different obstacles appear....

 

[ki4got]

Gave the last of the scratch last night. Will definitely be sliding my way down the driveway to the feed store today! I think the next time I pick up BOSS I'll save some to grow this summer since it costs more than scratch does. Gotta keep my chicken friends toasty warm at night after all Things to change for next winter: have a winter poultry barn!!!! Extra waterers to do the exchange of frozen ones, load up 2 or 3 months worth of feed prior to the worst months, plenty of scratch/boss when it isn't as expensive in direct winter. Anyone else? My list changes every year as different obstacles appear....

hm... things on the 'to do' list...
winter barn - check
extra waterers - check

my horse trailer is my primary coop (for free rangers) right now, but is drafty at best I think... I'm going to see if we can move it in the spring to another location, then i'll build something in it's place that's a bit more practical and easier to work with... that spot isn't much useful for anything else, it's nearly solid rock in spots. but hubby can get access to a hammer drill and we (meaning I) can drill down and cement in a few pieces of rebar to use to anchor the base, and build from there. then I can institute the deep litter I want to do and use the horse trailer for storing grain once more, as I used to do before the chickens came along. LOL. then maybe i can build a FF 'box' and with a heat lamp, it might even stay above freezing in the winter so hubby doesn't have to gag over it every day. LOL

I'm thinking I may put up a hawk-proof pen for the bantams too, incorporating the area I plan to fence for one of my mini studs, and let him babysit the chickens too... for my big girl, a 6' ceiling just wouldn't be tall enough I think, but for the birds and Dinker it would be fine. AND it would give them plenty of 'stuff' to sort thru looking for bugs and keep the area from becoming packed and dead... (he tends to pace around a lot, so solid ground doesn't stay solid long LOL)

all I need now are winning lotto numbers and a volunteer work force. hehe
actually, if I had just a volunteer work force, I could probably manage without the lotto (but it would be nice).

 

[pysankigirl]

this winter has been BRUTAL. when I got chickens I thought single combs woudl be fine here...it's VIRGINIA after all. most times we have pansies blooming throughout the winter here and if pansies can take the cold, then a chicken should be FINE. wow...not this year. I think all my Roosters are going to lose the tips off of their combs. and of course, I lost that one rooster who didn't go into the coop a couple nights ago...frozen solid in the morning.

one thing that has really helped, though is that the two main coops have heated waterrers. one was designed that way and the other I put a reptile heating mat underneath which is working splendidly. that makes two out of five that I don'd have to worry about. been pouring hot water into dogbowls the other places.

 

[Cknldy]

Try Russian Orloffs. Very close combs, big cold weather hardy birds. I'm thinking about having them as my main layers since they lay better than I thought they would. I had rhode island reds but spent a winter with vaseline in the coop sometimes fighting the roo just to help him out! I do have single comb and crested breeds now as well as bantams but I'm hoping a poultry barn will make it easier on everyone next year if we continue to get this kind of wind. I can't believe the wind and windchills this year!

 

[BrickWall Honey]

14 degrees on the Eastern Shore this morning, at least the 40mph wind has laid down.