Cooped-up

Jilly Bean on ice

Over the course of our snow-encrusted week here on the homestead we have gotten a chance to know our lil' animal friends a whole lot better. First of all, everyone seems to be adapting to the crazy weather beautifully. Jilly, our little winter wild cat has made herself quite at home amidst the frozen drifts and shows us her natural animal instincts are still intact. 

Miss Josephine

At first our backyard chickens were not sure of what to do with themselves and mostly just stayed in their coop where they felt safe. As I added straw to the sides and around the edges of their lil house they were slowly tempted to come out and scratch around a bit. They had enough of being "cooped-up" and eventually took to flapping around the yard, landing on anything that wasn't snow covered. The extra hay on the ground really helped them feel like things were back to normal and are scratching and clucking as if nothing were different. The good thing about chickens (especially our heirloom varieties) is that they are extremely cold-tolerant and adapt even in areas known to have long, frigid winters much colder than California. Still, having a dry, draft free place is essential.

Chilling on a newly constructed garden bed for a better view

Since this is the first flock of chickens I've raised on my own I kept a careful eye on them during the snow storm and tried to make them as comfortable as I could. Covering the ark with a folded tarp and stuffing it full of insulating straw was a good start but I wanted to add a little heat just in case and ran a light out for them. 

Still not sure if this is cool or not. 

Here you can make out the extension cord running into the chicken ark. They might not need it, but I wanted to be sure the girlies were extra cozy at night. The lamp and piles of rice straw make a big difference when temps are in the teens! Having fresh room-temperature water to drink is also very important when there's ice and snow about. The water dish actually froze solid over-night so we have been refreshing it with water from the house periodically so they aren't drinking icy water. 

Gotta get out of the coop!