Snow

We had some snow during the night last night, and more during the day today. This is the chickens first experience of snow. The step down into the garden part of the run had a light covering of snow on it this morning. The chooks headed towards it saw the snow and did an about turn. I could almost read their thoughts “I am not standing on that!”.

I brushed the snow from the step and immediately the girls headed out to the garden. During the day as the snow started falling again they retreated to the patio area. I could see they were not impressed. I would have liked to take a photo of them in the snow but they were not having that!

Snow in the run

This photo shows how well the plastic covering plus the umbrella are keeping the corner area dry. We hope in summer to take the plastic covering off and just keep the umbrella for wet summer days. We just hope this summer won’t be as wet as last summer.

We feel we got the top of the run improved just in time. The chicken net may have drooped under the weight of snow but with the chicken wire over thick wooden struts, we feel it’s strong enough to withstand snow.

As we had more snow during the day, it piled up on the corrugated plastic roof of the patio area and made it quite dark. The floodlight we put up at the weekend came in useful when I went in to do my afternoon sweep up.

The girls usually go to bed at half past four but I suddenly realised it was nearly five o’clock and they hadn’t gone in because they were still pottering about on the floodlit patio. I turned the light off and the sudden darkness confused them. The automatic coop door closed and the girls went behind the coop under the nest box. I know that chickens can’t see in the dark so I held the coop door open and shone my torch near it. One by one they filed in and I closed the door. I will try in future not to plunge them into sudden darkness.