Last night my neighbor's house burned down. The fire started around midnight, and the house was gone by 2am. I spent most of that time hoping and praying that the flames didn't spread this way. Luckily, I live rurally, and the house was several hundred feet away. Still, there is a tree line that started to smolder, and it would have brought the fire right over here. During the ordeal, I had a thought: I have no emergency plan. There are 3 dogs in my house, and 2 brooders full of chicks. The barn that houses my layers' coop is less than 40 feet from house. If my house started to go up, which animals would get saved, and how would I go about getting them out? I am also in an area prone to tornados... and again, I haven't thought about what I would do. I'm not sure there is room in the storm cellar for all the chickens So I'd like to know from everyone: what is your emergency plan for your animals?
As much as I'd hate to say it, if we had a Tsunami (the only real threat out here besides earthquakes) actually big enough to hit this place, we wouldn't have time to save the livestock, so we'd just grab the dogs and drive on uphill. I don't think a fire is someone to worry of too much, but it may happen. . . If it happened, it would only be a threat to about 1 building, which hopefully would be evacuated in time. Our coop (about 1/3 the size of the house) is over 100 feet away from the house, and we've got several houses, each more than 50 ft away from each other, plus the rest of the buildings even more so. . . And. . . It's just too temperate and wet out here for me to really worry of a fire.
If you're worried about a fire, then I might consider doing a firebreak perimeter by yanking out flammable vegetation. I'm not too concerned with our wet spring, but I have two sizes of "Weed Wrench" and I use them on everything from saplings trees to thorny weeds to overgrown poison ivy. Otherwise, your main concern would be burning embers settling on the roofs of structures and starting a fire. You'd have to keep those wetted down or consider a concrete-covered metal shingle for your next roofing job.
Honestly, if there was a tornado here and I had time, I would let them out of the coop if they were in it, and if they were out free ranging, they'd have to take care of themselves. I think they'd stand a better chance out in the woods than in a coop that would collapse on them. Fire, probably the same thing.
Ummm... I really don't know what I would do. We have 40 acres here with about 30 cattle, 20 pigs, 1 goat, 1 dog, 8 hens and 2 roosters. Everything is pretty close to my house and easy to get to. I would probably be one of those people who run around letting all the animals loose and try to find them later after the fire is out. That's what I have heard some people do so that the animals can get away from the fire themselves.
If we had a fire, our main concern would be ourselves of course, then DW's 2 cats. The chicken coop would be safe. Weatherwise our biggest concern is hurricanes. We'd have plenty of warning if one were to approach and we have an evacuation plan in place....cats and chickens included. Lightning is scary around here and I've had several trees hit over the years. Tornados arnt an issue here, they are rare.
Last year we had a hail storm. That was scary. I was as clueless about it as my chickens. I've never been in snow or anything else besides rain. Most of my chickens got under the coops and vehicles we have but a few dumb roosters, including Pinky, just ran around like crazy. I was on the back porch trying to decide if I should go out there to help them or stay in the house. I ended up calling them onto the porch. I thought it was going to kill them, but all were still alive and a little smarter. It did happen one more time and this time everyone was hiding. We also had a tornado once They cancelled school for two days. Luckily it missed my house and chicken coops, but a few trees were hit. All of my birds lived through that too, but we were all scared after it happened. It was very scary. I never want to go through that again. I have worried about fires before, but I don't know what I would do if we had one, and especially if it was at night
I think many people who add heat to their chicken house could have a fire. Have a good size fire extinguisher near the kitchen, and check it when you do the smoke alarms to make sure it is charged. A garden hose can also put out a great deal of fire. We live so far out in the country, we have our own firetruck. As for a tornado, get protection for myself and family, and pick up the pieces afterwards and see who else made it. MrsK
