Best of luck. I know these decisions can't be easy. Sadly life doesn't always reveal itself with 100% certainty and we just try and do the best we can.
I actually created an article here with all the info for my city: City of Austin
They are surprisingly chicken-friendly as they see it as a way to reduce solid waste.
I have cleats, but it was solid ice out there. That would have been even less traction than my muck boots or workboots! My old football cleats don't have a lot of points of contact.
I'm originally from the NE with a few years in the Midwest, so I can handle the cold temps for a bit, but I didn't think I'd ever be trudging out 3 times/day in the sub-freezing temps to check on chickens. 🤣
5 years ago me would not believe this was happening.
Me the past few days in...
Thanks @NatJ ! In this case, I was also looking for an excuse to get rid of some old cans of beans, but that idea is a great one for the future. In summer, I occasionally give them fermented feed, but I have a small enough flock that I haven't figured out a good way to do that without making a...
(Mon Jan 27 - Day 648)
As of 1PM, the 5g waterer that I moved into the sunlight started thawing enough that I could put it back into their pen. Moved the other 5g waterer to the garage if I need a defrosted waterer for tomorrow.
The hot beans and all of that bean water was vaporized, so it looks...
I hear ya. Same thing happened to me. I was dog tired and fell asleep on the sofa last night. The Mrs forgot to run the dishwasher last night which is my usual way to keep water flowing on the pipe to the kitchen and the cabinet under the sink wasn't left open. So now we have no running cold tap...
It was 21 here in Austin this morning. All chickens were alive and well despite having no functional waterers for probably 24 hrs. Nice surprise as one of my girls decided this weather was the time to restart egg production. 😂
Post in thread '0 to 10 in 72 hrs. A chicken math story, continued.'
(Mon Jan 27 - Day 648)
21 degrees this morning for our second straight day of freezing temps. All of our chickens were out and about this morning. Definitely needed Mrs ATXInstantFlock's assistance this morning!
All of their 5 gallon waterers frozen solid. ⛄Thankfully I brought the 2 gallon one...
It's been in the 20s for most of the day here in Austin and we got some sleet or freezing rain overnight, so everything is close to being a sheet of ice now.
A handful of brave neighbors have been sledding, but our poor senior dogs aren't super interested. A lot of slipping and sliding on...
Collected my eggs tonight and got a little surprise. One of the eggs does not appear to have a shell. The one on top is basically just the soft inner membrane.
FWIW, the flock gets a 50/50 mix of all flock and meat bird crumbles (no layer feed), and I supplement with egg shells and free feed...
Belated Happy New Year everyone!
It's been so nice that I decided to do a full coop clean out today. Out with the old pine shavings, pellets, and poop. In with the new lime, pine shavings, and pine pellets.
I think I'm going to start tracking my weekly maintenance as workouts. 😂
Happy Belated @TX Chick Noob !
I guess I missed months worth of messages since not seeing the notifications icon lit up. I guess I've got a few months of chicken adventures to document and share as well. Hope everyone has been well!
Question for the Texas hive mind. Would it be crazy to not collect eggs at all for 4-5 days? I live in Austin and will have a.house sitter for the dogs, but unsure if she'll be okay dealing with the chickens.
Started thinking about hiring a pet sitter to come by and collect eggs once/twice and...
Thanks for the additional confirmation. I still feel bad about it as she also hasn't laid in almost a week. There's definitely some hen fighting going on right now. Not sure how/why they decided to get ornery. Just occurred to me that my feed has been a bit higher in protein as we ran out of the...
Yes, she had a round brown scab. When I looked on the first day, I thought it was dark brown with a light center, but that light center was probably just some chicken poop that had gotten stuck to it. After the epsom salt bath, it was a fairly uniform dark brown color. After slicing it off...