# I spoke too soon!



## kessy09 (Jun 16, 2013)

Just the other day I mentioned in a thread we've had the worst weather winter will give us and chickens were still out side in their heavily tarped runs. I said there wouldn't be a day they'd be confined to their coops. Well, today was the day. We had over 60mph winds and it caught a couple teeny air spaces in my tarps and ripped them clean off the runs. It snowed 1.5 feet in 24 hours. The wind blew the snow into the runs and greyed huge drifts on the inside. There was no way chickens were going out so they were stuck in. I tossed in a few chopped up zucchinis and a half a head of lettuce in each coop. They seemed fine with it. Spent a lot of time scratching up the deep litter which they haven't bothered with much which is nice. Temps are dropping back down to -45 tonight and won't let up anymore this year so I'm not sure when I'll get out to go dig their runs out. I'm so tired of winter on the prairies! Three more months til we start seeing spring weather!!


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## robin416 (Sep 8, 2013)

If there's a weakness any where the wind will find it. When I put plastic on the outside of my pens I also attached battens to sandwich the plastic. It kept the wind from getting under the attachment points and ripping it off. 

Plus I've heard in the past that the wind can rip the runs apart if its strong enough and the tarps hold. So, you might have dodged a bullet where the integrity of your pens are concerned.


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## kessy09 (Jun 16, 2013)

Good idea with the battens. Have some major shoveling to do in those runs now. Rodney is settling in perfectly with the girls. Three more hens started squatting for me today. They don't seem displeased at all to be locked inside. Next winter I will start winterizing while it's still semi-warm out so it's not as rush of a job as it was this year. We got snow much earlier than expected.


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## robin416 (Sep 8, 2013)

"Next winter I will start winterizing while it's still semi-warm out so it's not as rush of a job as it was this year." Let me know if that really happens, every year I said I would do X before hot or cold weather set in. I never quite made it. Plastic went up with the wind was whipping every single year.

Glad to hear the little guy is loving his new digs.


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## kessy09 (Jun 16, 2013)

Lol Robin. I know what will actually happen next year. The same thing that happens every year. We are in an extreme deep freeze now. Temps dropped to -45 with a windchill of -51.


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## robin416 (Sep 8, 2013)

Dang it. I grew up in MI but never really had to deal with that. Yes, we got where day time temps were the teens F but it hurts just looking at that.


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## Jim (Sep 26, 2012)

One main reason I live in the south. It got down to 42 last night here, and boy am I cold!


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## robin416 (Sep 8, 2013)

Jim said:


> One main reason I live in the south. It got down to 42 last night here, and boy am I cold!


We had a cold front go through just before Christmas, the day time temps were in the 50's. Hubs and I went to pick up some building supplies and we spotted some one in short sleeves and shorts, everyone else was wearing jackets and long pants. He said, look for the northern plates because no way is the guy from down here.


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## nj2wv (Aug 27, 2013)

I agree. When it's fifty degrees here in the winter I want to bring out my shorts too lol.


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## piglett (Jun 21, 2012)

wait a second folks
i thought the globe was warming.......
it was 11f here today & that was the high temp
if i could find Al Gore i would give him a good talking to


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## robin416 (Sep 8, 2013)

The one thing we don't have is a stable climate. Right now the scientists can not explain the bazaar behavior of the jet stream and that's what has caused all of the more than normal severe storms. Right now we're two feet above normal rain fall for the year in my state. Four years ago this area was in extreme drought.


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## kessy09 (Jun 16, 2013)

We do a garden CSA every year and early this season was the first year we flooded. We live no where near a river. Water came so high up in our ditches it got any low spot in our yard. Devastated the garden. We recovered but it took a lot of work and reworking the garden. Fish were swimming up our ditches and into our pond so all the baby ducks and goslings were eaten by jack fish-which then died when the water receded and the pond froze all the way down. We used to have a very healthy ecosystem in that pond/marsh but it's all messed up now. Our storms are crazy in the last few years-I read that with the way weather is shifting, "tornado alley" is expanding which will put our area right in it as well.


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