I was hard at it today. I finished up the two new hay mangers after the design I been tweaking all week. I still need to figure out some type of top for them and put the paint on. I am leaning towards Aluminum if I can managed it and going to use an oil based barn paint as I seem to have much better luck with the oil based ones staying around longer.
I moved up away from the barn by the shop to put the mangers together since they are predicting a bad storm front moving through tomorrow. It's much easier to put everything up that way out of the rain. Of course it didn't take more than half an hour before my Chicken supervisor showed up.
The poor girl is molting and looks all frayed at the edges. She just cannot stand other chickens and comes and finds me no matter where I am at around the place now. She get's in her little dog crate every night and nestles down just as happy as can be to be away from those other birds. I don't know what I am going to do come real Winter when she may need the collective body heat to stay warm. Guess I will have to put her under a heat lamp.
All day long the radio went on and on about the University of Missouri fiasco. I often read about people complaining that the news of the world is so depressing and fills them with such angst they can hardly stand it. For me I take it all in stride. It's just part of the long slow decline and it's much more humorous when you can remain completely detached from it.
This UMC thing is one of those. Some 50 miles away from me the Liberal-Feminist-Multi-Cult dominated educational institution (That I help pay for) is eating it's own. They refuse to play young White Men on the football team no matter how good they are so they can make more money to indoctrinate more young people thus giving a football team so much power. It has been pretty obvious to me for some time now that the Blacks at UMC were going to protest and get their way because the leadership there has been living off the Leftist religious dogma for decades. The campus and city is the center of the only Femocrat dominated island within a sea of Conservative sentiment. All of us out here in the rural areas know Columbia is doomed once the collapse catches up to it. The only thing keeping it going now is the direct tap it has to federal money and sports and the fact they have some top notch hospitals.
Yet the most important part of this is it shows how times have changed and the leftist are now attacking their own. They don't want what's out here in the rural areas. The US's brand of the Multi-Cult isn't interested in land only political power and gimmedats and all of those that are left to claim are in the hands of traitorous White Male Democrats.
This is another sure sign of the slow grinding decline folks. When they turn on each other squabbling over the crumbs of the pie the end is almost near.
Keep Prepping Everyone!!!!!!!!!!
They attack soft targets and can you think of a softer target than a bunch of liberal college professors and administrators? They are as soft as inside the beltway republicans, well maybe not that soft as they probably still have beliefs and a spine.
ReplyDeleteIt is just a small preview of what is going to happen in liberal progressive areas around the country where the brainwashing has gone on for years and they have gained pretty much total control.
You can put your chicken in the cellar in a small coup that wouldn't be hard to build, maybe a wheelbarrow design so you can wheel it outside to clean it. They can handle the cold pretty well since they have insulated coats on, especially if they can get in the sun. Cold windy nights might need more protection but they need lots of fresh air even then.
Sf - Ya they go after the soft targets that's for sure. To them the only soft target is the university because the rest of the state would run em back to the liberal enclave.
DeleteOnly problem there is I am not sure I have the flooding issue fixed yet. It hasn't rained enough for me to know if the basement still floods :)
Wouldn't want a floating chicken :)
Be cautious on giving your birds heat in the winter. They can take cold much better than we can with all the fluff. Ventilation is the most important thing to provide. If you give them heat it may cause them to 'sweat' (really just moisture created by their body heat) and then you can cause frostbite. We do not heat our coop. Last year we was the first time we had issues with frostbite. We had more birds and one of the rooster's got frostbite. It was due to poor ventilation which allowed the moisture from their breathing and bodies to build up and that collects on the birds and on the bedding. It also created a secondary problem.... mold. This year more vents and some holes along the eave by the door. Adding heat also needs caution cause many coops have burned down due to tipped heaters or busted heat lamps.
ReplyDeleteBut, if you are still worried about her getting cold, you can always put her in a small pet carrier (the plastic ones) or cover her crate with a blanket. Straw bedding works well since she will nestle down in it.
Hobo - Well ventilation isn't a problem for the flock anyway. They have a stall in the barn that is enclosed in hardware cloth kinda like a 12 foot hardware cloth cube sitting in 50 foot barn. Only the wooden sidewalls keep the outside out.
DeleteI currently keep her in a dog kennel in the coop part. She has plenty of hay int here but I thought the birds would group close together to keep warm when it got really cold and in there she won't have anyone to cuddle up to.
Covering the crate with an old blanket is a good idea though.
I don't plan on heating the coop at all but hoping the chickens will take care of each other.
Don't burn your barn down over a chicken!! She'll be fine with a little extra straw thrown in her carrier. And if you're really worried, close the carrier door and bring her inside. Chickens are basically little furnaces with down coats on, As long as they are out of the wind, low moisture in the coop, and they can fully sit on their feet they will be fine. Mine are in a metal shed in Idaho with a single layer of radiant barrier/ bubble wrap insulation, and I only put that up to reflect the heat in the summer lol.
ReplyDeleteAnon - Well our chickens are in kinda a wire cage in one corner of the barn. It can get drafty in there when the wind is out of the South or East but generally it's protected. It's an old barn though so some of the doors don't close tight and there are cracks here and there. I used 2x4's for the perches so they could cover their feet.
DeleteCold does not bother chickens, but drafts will kill them. They need ventilation....a small window up high. We put Vaseline on the combs in winter so their combs won't get frostbite. Your lone hen will hunker down in the hay and fluff herself up.
ReplyDeleteTewshooz - Well ventilation isn't a problem. The roof of the barn is a good 10 foot above the wire roof of the coop stall. I am hoping I won't have to Vaseline their combs though. Trying to catch em would be fun.
Deleteshe sounds like a house chicken to me. just sayin'.
ReplyDeleteu no hoo
kymber - I am not putting it passed the wife or mother either one to bring her inside.
DeleteSeveral of our chickens are in heavy moult - a little late this year. We have had high temperatures for November, 17degrees the other NIGHT for goodness sake! I don't know what the temps could drop to where you live, but it could be down to freezing by next week, but I'm not too worried about them as they have a watertight, well ventilated house for night times and laying. It sounds as though you have all you need for your little hen.
ReplyDeleteGood luck
Not coming from the US I didn't understand anything about UMC!
FinDerb - Generally it doesn't get down below the low 20's here even in January. Of course every so often we get a storm blowing down from Canada that will send our temps plummeting into the single digits or below for a few days though. It's those storms I am most worried about.
DeleteOh and the UMC thing is just more Blacks screaming for more concessions. No matter how much they get they always want more and we are racist for not giving it to them. The interesting part about UMC this time though is the target of their wrath has been one of their allies for years. Based his entire career on it.
Deletewonder how much "power" those football players would have if they were to play their next home game in an empty stadium?? or if nobody showed up for their bowl game....or if the endowments stopped.
ReplyDeletetime for the adults in the room to stop supporting this bull
Cannon - If only we Whites would stand up for ourselves and protest the things like sports teams that discriminate against us as a whole. We are just a race divided and until we figure that out we are just going to decline more.
DeleteThe UMC thing is a window into what is coming. It's a bunch of non-productive memembers of society flinging poo around and then deciding to cannibalize who ever got the most stuck to them. The next time they get bored or hungry they will fling more and decide who to go after next.
ReplyDeleteExile1981
Exile1981 - Agreed. What makes it entertaining now is that their targets are their past allies. Kinda karmic in a way :)
DeleteVery karmic.
DeleteAlso thanks for your military service.
Exile1981