They very slowly emerged from their coop to get their morning drink of water, which was frozen solid. We have been taking boiling water out to them to melt the ice so they can have water. I've read that it is important to keep clean water for chickens, which is not always easy!
I have three automatic waterers positioned around their lot with the bowl through the fence where I can fill up the bottle without going into the lot. On these freezing nights I can take the bottle in the house if I think about it, but the water in the bowl is still frozen if I forgot to dump it out.
Here are a couple of pictures of some of our chickens at one of the waterers:
Later in the day, when it was time to let them free range, I only had a few reluctant volunteers. Most of the chickens wanted to stay in the coop, or under the coop where it was dry! It was funny watching the ones that did come out stepping through the snow, and then jumping back to where it was already packed down.
The snow seemed to disorient the chickens, also. I did eventually get all of them out of the coop as the week progressed, but I noticed that some of them had trouble figuring out where the door to their lot was! They paced back and forth, trying to get back in the lot, on the wrong side where there is not a gate!
They sure did not like the snow as much as we did! The next time a big snow is predicted I think I should put a tarp down over their lot so I can take the snow up and leave them with more of a dirt lot the way they like it!
Each to his own…
(or her own if we are talking about hens).
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