Wool hen, but maybe snow?!?!

[beela]

Haha, you are not lying. My house is built for the heat of a southern summer, not the cold of a northern winter. All of my power outage preparedness is geared towards hurricane season when it's hot outside.
Got some more pictures this morning when I went to put out unfrozen waters.
This is the temperature in my yard

This is the temperature in the run

This is the temperature
in the brooder coop. Not too bad!

I got a picture of a few of the babies

And here is a picture of my little kale that could. This kale does not care that it is a hard freeze, it does what it wants! (Its a straggler from my summer garden that I've been harvesting off of for my girls)

So, there you have it!

 

[aart]

Do you have more pics of the inside of your wool hen and how you constructed it?

 

[beela]

Ooh, good call, I don't have any right now, and I have the wool hen out in the brooder with them right now in case they need or want any extra warmth through this freeze snap, but I can mock up the process with some non-wool strips and an extra milk crate.

 

[Dani4Hedgies]

You mentioned that you had a broody Silkie hen I would have just moved the chicks under her when you got them all. With them being older however it will depend on your hen I have a silkie that didn't care how old the chicks were if she could get to them and their mom (or they didn't have a mom) she would take them (even if it met being sneaking and stealing them one at a time from the mom who hatched them). Or with a couple she just "joined" the nest and the other mom was very thankful for this as the silkie would be soo happy to just sit on the hens so the hatch mom would have more time to her self, or if there were a lot of chicks they would "self split" the chicks up the crazy run around everywhere chicks would go with the other mom the laid back relax cuddle and only get out to eat or drink chicks stayed with the silkie. Hope your babies are doing ok.

 

[beela]

Ooh, good call, I have the wool hen out in the brooder with them right now in case they need or want any extra warmth through this freeze snap, but I can mock up the process with some non-wool strips and an extra milk crate.
Here is how I wrapped the strips (in the real wool hen I used a felted wool sweater cut into 2 inch wide strips)

Here is a pic of the real wool strips

Then I just wrapped a square of fleece around the crate and tucked and tied the corners through the holes in the milk crate.

 

[beela]

You mentioned that you had a broody Silkie hen I would have just moved the chicks under her when you got them all. With them being older however it will depend on your hen I have a silkie that didn't care how old the chicks were if she could get to them and their mom (or they didn't have a mom) she would take them (even if it met being sneaking and stealing them one at a time from the mom who hatched them). Or with a couple she just "joined" the nest and the other mom was very thankful for this as the silkie would be soo happy to just sit on the hens so the hatch mom would have more time to her self, or if there were a lot of chicks they would "self split" the chicks up the crazy run around everywhere chicks would go with the other mom the laid back relax cuddle and only get out to eat or drink chicks stayed with the silkie. Hope your babies are doing ok.

Thanks! They are doing great! They've been back outside in their brooder since right after that cold snap/sleet storm. They are almost 5? Weeks now I think, and really enjoying being outside. They have their own fenced off section of the run so the big girls can see them while they are outside, and they can squeak under the chicken wire fence but the big girls can't follow them back in. I'll grab a pic next time I go out to check on them.

 

[aart]

Here is a pic of the real wool strips

Is that the one they are using now....or is the whole top filled with strips?

Great pics, thanks!

Was thinking about your cold snap down there.
Lived in N.FLA. one winter/spring years ago....it snowed and everyone was freaking out.

 

[beela]

Is that the one they are using now....or is the whole top filled with strips?

Great pics, thanks!

Was thinking about your cold snap down there.
Lived in N.FLA. one winter/spring years ago....it snowed and everyone was freaking out.

Thanks, the one with red strips is the crate in their brooder now, (not that they have any interest in using it. They are spending more time using an old tidy cats litter container as a huddle box.) It's not filled all the way with strips, but with 20 chicks, I wanted to save some room for the chicks. Haha.

Ha, yeah we are pretty excitable around snow down here in the south. Lol. So far our chances of snow are pretty slim, but Maybe!
Being able to see pictures and read stories from all of the real winter folks has definitely helped with this cold snap. I don't think we've had this many hard freeze days/nights in a row in about a decade. I'll go look that up.

 

[aart]

Oh, I thought the chicks snuggled amongst the strips, not just next to them.

 

[beela]

Oh, I thought the chicks snuggled amongst the strips, not just next to them.

Oh, you are right, they do snuggle amongst the strips, I tried to leave a few gaps inside for pockets of chicks, and, I only had one sweater. hehe. Next year I will probably score another sweater, or knit up some purpose knit strips.

Oh, and I looked it up, last time we had a cold snap/freeze that lasted as long as tjis one has was 2010, so I was close.