Heating the chicken

It's cold out tonight, really cold.

This egg was not out there too horribly long. But obviously it was long enough.


For some reason I had -20 in my head as the point at which I would put heat on in the coop. The weatherdudes say we're already at -25, and think we're headed to somewhere near -30 tonight. I was just out there, and it is almost -15 in the coop. So that is it, time for heat!

My husband helped me nail a heat lamp up with some wire staples, and it is now hanging very securely over the roost. My goal here is to NOT burn the barn down.

Once that was done I took my gloves off and started rubbing petroleum jelly into my two rooster's combs and wattles. It's supposed to help prevent freezer burn frostbite. I still had the hens to do, but after just those few minutes of bare skin exposed I could hardly move my fingers.

I ran back to the house.

My long underwear were missing, because I had to empty my bedroom closet.

This is the reason why.


Nice, don't you think?

A huge gash in the sewer pipe, which was letting a whole lot of very stinky air right into the wall between the bathroom and my bedroom closet... but usually only when I did laundry. But even that is often enough to be a real problem. Finally I had gotten everything emptied out of the closet so my husband could attack the wall. I'm just thrilled the problem was so obvious. It's now temporarily patched up with a bunch of caulking. Still stinky, but not as bad as it was before.

Like I said, my closet is empty... and my clothes (and honestly I really don't have much after being at home with these kiddos for almost five years) are now in three random locations around the house.

So I searched for awhile and eventually found them, the long Johns, and also grabbed my ski pants too. I now had three layers on my legs. My husband found me a pair of disposable nitrile gloves (like exam gloves).

Back out the door and to the barn, which at the moment is colder than my freezer, again.

I peeked in the coop door, and guess what? Not a single freezing frostbit bird of mine was anywhere even slightly near the heat lamp! Birdbrains!

Did you know that a tube of petroleum jelly gets awfully stiff at fifteen degrees below zero? Crazy weird that stuff is, it actually freezes at 100 to 113 degrees Fahrenheit. Rubber bands get really, really interesting at -80 Celsius, but that doesn't have anything even slightly to do with my farm, where I tend to measure temperature in Fahrenheit degrees.

Anyway... what a difference that thin layer of nitrile made on my hands. Too bad I couldn't coat the chickens combs and wattles with nitrile. But even if I could, they would probably just eat it. Birdbrains.

After greatly disturbing each hen to give it a petroleum jelly luxury frozen prairie spa treatment, I placed it on the roost right under the heat. It was amazing! They transformed from the grumpy, hunched up balls of poofed out feathers that they are in very cold weather. They stretched out their necks and looked all around, preened a few feathers, stretched their legs out one at a time, and then settled in.

By the time I was done I had a roost full of hens snuggled in side by side. The lucky ones were right below the heat lamp. Ah, so much better.

I ran back to the house again, hoping I don't wake up tonight to a barn bonfire and blackened chicken. Wish us luck.