Yay flooding

[rosemarythyme]

Have had endless rain since about 2 nights ago and we have a creek running about 20' from the side of the house, 15' or so from our chicken run. We've never had flooding until today...



So this isn't a failure of the deep litter or a drainage issue, but rather the creek some 15' from the run (seen in 2nd photo on right side) is overflowing the banks and running across the lawn and draining in a rivulet behind the big trees in the first photo. Until rain subsides and the water level drops back down we're going to be pretty wet. The good news I suppose is the run flooring is helping, in some spots it has built up higher than the rest of the lawn, so the chickens have a few drier spots to utilize (I moved the brooder on top of one and opened it up as rain shelter) but it's probably going to take a few days for all this water to get absorbed.

 

[azygous]

"Water World". Remember that movie with Kevin Costner? What a mess. And I complain when the snow is melting and I have a little mud.

I hope you haven't had so much rain that the water table is now just inches from the surface. If that's the case, that water isn't going to sink in very quickly.

Perhaps this summer, you might want to think about moving the chickens' quarters to a spot with a bit more drainage and not so close to the creek you will be reminded of the movie, "A River Runs Through It" should the creek ever decide to upgrade itself to something larger.

 

[rosemarythyme]

The water table has always been just under the surface, which is why our the lawn stays green in summer even after 60 days of not being watered. It has never interfered with drainage but then again, this is an atypical amount of water. So I am curious to see how fast/slow this will clear up.

And unfortunately there's really no other place to move the run to... Behind the house there is very little space, and the septic system drains there. We have a second front lawn about same size as the first but it's boggy 9 months of the year (though at least not currently flooded) as it feeds into a stormwater pond.

 

[azygous]

Move.

 

[rosemarythyme]

Move.

Hahaha, would be nice if things were that easy.

Like suckers, we picked this house because I "thought it would be nice to have a water view," and short of living in a houseboat you can't get a better view than 20' out from your kitchen eh?

 

[ChickNanny13]

@azygous If it were that simple.
@rosemarythyme We have the same problem when the rain storms hit ... for days. My Hubby's nephew & wife had put down a deposit on a house but after we had days/weeks of rain (they claim it was 40 days/40 nights), they gave up their deposits and moved back to CA. They now live in AZ.

I sort of solved my issue with wicking water when the ground soaks & puddles in a section of my Chicken House ... I use horse pellets under the shaving in that one section It's been working so far but then again we were lucky & avoided a hurricane this Summer & it's been drier than normal. However, seems like there's a storm front and several weeks of rain is forecasted

 

[rosemarythyme]

We have the same problem when the rain storms hit ... for days. My Hubby's nephew & wife had put down a deposit on a house but after we had days/weeks of rain (they claim it was 40 days/40 nights), they gave up their deposits and moved back to CA. They now live in AZ.

I sort of solved my issue with wicking water when the ground soaks & puddles in a section of my Chicken House ... I use horse pellets under the shaving in that one section It's been working so far

Thankfully(?) this amount of rain in a short period of time is not the norm for our area... from the weather reports it looks like all the rain is just congregating in this valley instead of moving on so that's why it's so bad. My mother-in-law lives only a few miles away (also on a creek) but she said they're getting flash flood warnings and roads are closed so not sure if she can even go anywhere this weekend. Meanwhile we have no issue getting in and out at least.

If the rain would just taper off I could at least grab some bags of dried leaves and dump them in the run as fill to keep the floor level a bit higher while things slowly dry out. That should do as a temporary fix. Hopefully the next rainstorm will be less intense and will move through the area faster and further.

 

[azygous]

Even though you live in a place where it rains a lot, it can be pretty miserable when you don't get any relief from it. After all, our species left the oceans for dry land so long ago, we've lost our gills. I doubt your chickens are all that crazy about rain, either.

You have our sincere sympathy.

 

[Perris]

sorry to hear of your woes. The weather pattern is stuck here too; there were over 100 flood warnings in place across the UK last night, and the south of France has seen flooding for weeks. Meanwhile Oz is stuck in a heatwave. Extremes are bad for everyone.

 

[aart]

Yikes!!
it doesn't go much higher.