Early-To-Mid January Arctic Blast Takes Toll.

We made it through the arctic blast that came through Georgia in the first half of January... No major incidents other than the chickens showing signs of what the bitter wet cold temps will do to their precious combs and waddles. Even though we have two heat lamps and plastic up inside the coop over the windows, a few of the chickens have frostbite on their unfeathered parts. They do tend to try to protect themselves while on the roost... covering their feet and tucking their heads inside of their wings. Here are some new updated photos:

Now you see her...

Now you don't! We like to call this the "tuck".

They bunch up together on the roost to generate heat.

By mid-January, Clint Eastwood the rooster was already showing huge signs of frostbite in his comb tips.

Hen board meeting around the "water cooler" or the dog's water bowl. They love to stand around it together and drink lots of water. Especially if their water jug freezes up during the nights of the arctic blast.

Their water jug up under the heat lamps in an attempt to keep it from freezing up.

The arctic temps pretty much killed our beautiful romaine lettuce... even though we covered the plants top to bottom.

For some reason, the cold temps makes the chickens eat a ton more food and lay their eggs all over the coop. It's like a scavenger hunt each day to find all the eggs.

They really do love the heat lamps.

Gearing for Winter Blast.

Well it looks like we are in for a huge blast of Winter starting tomorrow, so we spent this weekend gearing up for the cold. Trip to a local feed store yesterday got us one heat lamp bulb for the chicken coop and a large bag of scratch. Trip to LaGrange this morning got us another heat bulb, two heat lamp set ups, stuff to winterize pipes and spigots, and groceries just in case. We have been taking water over to the farm for the chickens in old 2-liter bottles since Hubby turned the well off due to the low temps earlier this week. Stapled plastic sheeting over and around raised bed covers and around penthouse windows in the coop to keep harsh winds off the interiors. Filled the feeders and water jug in the coop again today. Added more straw to the intermediate level and nesting boxes.
We saw a whole lot of this during our Saturday morning walk around the farm in 20 degree temps.

So yesterday on our walk Hubby checked on the honey bees... everything seemed fine. Fingers crossed!

Huge pot of deer chili simmering on the stove. I think we are ready... for just about anything.