So far, this snow has lasted and lasted and lasted for days. Temps are not rising above freezing, even on the sunniest of days, so we are not getting much relief. We took the heavy covers off the chicken pens to allow for the sun to shine in with the clear vinyl tarps covering for some warmth to stay in the pens. So far, the hens are surviving, but no egg laying in this freezing weather. Their survival is more important than the eggs.
The photo of the Turkey Pen that was totally snow covered two days ago, now has only a little snow on the top. You can tell by the tops of the tree branches that the wind, typically 15-30 mph from the East, is moving snow (not melting it). Hence, the snow on the screen of the turkey pen has simply blown through the openings.
Other photos are our back yard and the golf course across the valley, which is more visible than usual with the bare trees and the white expanse of lawn. Sorry for the blurry. It's cold and hard to keep the camera steady.
Spring is on its way and that means more chicks. The plan this year is to use the Turkey Coop and Pen for some meat chickens. We will get some more Welsummer chicks for "updated" younger layers for the flocks. The Welsummers seem to be better, more consistent layers, and their attitudes are better than the Orloffs. While we have loved our Orloffs, we can certainly understand why this breed is not a favorite for most. They are stand offish and, um, clichy when attempting to blend others into the group. We have had a few that are downright mean. Those were the ones we ended up thinning out of the flocks. But for the most part, they are even tempered, they are not super noisy, easy to maintain and hearty. So those are the perks. The non-perks are that they are not consistent egg layers and their eggs are not large.
Well, back to getting some stuff cleaned up around here.
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