Battening down the hatches

We were expecting a storm today with tornado watches, hail warnings and high wind and rain predicted, so we quickly did chores and had a marathon movie day as the storm passed through.  We watched a movie called "Defiance," which was an excellent, true story about some Jewish survivors in 1941 who survived throughout the holocaust in the forest.  We also watched Rooster Cogburn, with John Wayne and Katharine Hepburn.  Both movies were about survival amidst tough circumstances.

Speaking of survival, it had rained earlier the night before and we picked up around an inch of rain, but more was predicted, so we prepared for it.  I learn most of my lessons the hard way.  Several years ago I learned my lesson losing fat healthy 25 birds that were about the same size as ours are now.  A storm blew through, bringing lots of rain, flooding the pasture and drowning all of our birds - not a one survived.


One inch in the gauge with more on the way.

A little water in the ditch with more coming...

So I wasn't going to lose birds this time.  Here's my plan that has worked well since the day we lost 25 fat meat chickens.  I like to have the birds on pasture so that they can eat grass and not only feed.  But by doing this, you open yourself up to risks that you must prepare for, storms being one of them.  So I quickly screwed some corrugated tin on the sides of the chicken tractor and stapled some feed sacks over the remaining holes.  It doesn't look pretty, but it is temporary and functional.  This blocks the wind and rain from chilling (and killing the birds).  They don't like to get cold or wet.    I'll remove this once the storm passes and nicer weather returns.  I like the sun to shine in and disinfect things.  


Temporary protection from the storm 

Step two involves hay.  You can see the wheel barrow above that is full of hay.  I ended up moving three loads.  The plan here is to lay down enough hay so that if the water rises, the birds are 3 or 4 inches above ground level and safely out of the water.

Safely out of harm's way

Our chickens have the opportunity to still get on the grass and forage on grass, if they wish, as I only fill up half of the tractor with hay.  Although the birds are pretty dumb, I've found that they will move toward the heat lamps to stay warm and dry.  So with preparations made for the animals, we ventured inside, watched movies, and watched the storm blow through.  We lost power for a short time and had high winds, the storm wasn't as bad in our area as in others. 


Freedom of movement from hay to grass

Once the storm passed over, we ventured out to check on the animals, giving Stryker and Maggie some hay to eat.  We checked the rain gauge - only one half inch.  

Hey there

Checking in on the birds, all was okay.  The birds were safely protected from the wind and rain.  We only suffered one casualty - one of the bulbs in the heat lamp popped as shown below.  They are super-hot and what I'm sure happened is that despite our precautions, the wind blew a drop of rainwater that hit the bulb, causing it to explode.  Oh well.  It could have been much worse.  Crisis averted.  Now we'll pitchfork all the hay out of the chicken tractor and cart it off to the garden for composting.

A broken heat lamp bulb - the only casualty of the storm