The sad remains of a shattered.....awning

Photo:  The casualty of our latest snow/more snow/thaw/freeze/thaw/more snow cycle.  Before, when a normal amount of snow was on the walkway roof.  And after,  when the last bit of snow slid off the metal barn roof yesterday and ripped the walkway roof right off of the side of the barn.

About 3 days ago, I noticed a LOT of snow had built up on the flat-roofed awning that sheltered our walkway to the front door of the barn.  The roof there was simply one or two sheets of metal roofing, laid flat on a pergola-style framework of 2x2 and 2x6 wood with a couple of nice-looking black pillars to dress it up a bit.  

Earlier in the summer, we'd noticed that it really wasn't attached to the side of the barn anymore.  The wood had rotted, the rain splashing and snow sitting against the siding of the barn had caused a problem with the framework in that area (rotten wood).

We had been given a pole/joist support (not sure what it's called---an adjustable metal pole used to support a roof) when friends Jane and Myles had been cleaning out Jane's Mom's house and garage.  That came in handy to hold up the worst corner, where the roof was starting to tip downward and had no attachment left to the barn at all.  The other corner was still holding on by a few rusty nails.

So, when I saw how much snow was on top of that flat roof, and when we started noticing that the middle of the 2x6 support-boards was potentially bending under the weight, I started being a little apprehensive about using that particular doorway to get into the barn.  

Not wanting to be crushed flat, I chose to go all the way around the back of the barn instead, through a gate, through the cow's area, to avoid the potential death-trap.

It could have been saved, but we were already wondering how we would reattach it to any solid part of the barn.  

Jeff has had a very busy week of not getting home until well after dinner, and we've been in the last crazy week of basketball season for both boys.  Michael offered to shovel it clean the night before last, but by then it was looking so dangerous that I didn't want him near it.

Like I said, it "could" have been saved, but the repairs were waiting even if we HAD saved it.

It WAS nice to have cover for hauling in bags of feed, or to shelter from drips coming off the main roof of the barn, or to keep snow and icicles from sliding off the new metal roof right onto the walkway (or down the back of my jacket, something that DID happen 3 days back on the other side of the barn!)

But having that walkway where it was kept us from using a hay elevator to get hay easily up to the second floor.  Every bale of hay went in the first-floor door (carried by hand), got stacked in the first floor area (by hand), was hoisted one-by-one up to the second floor (by hand and pulley power) and was then stacked and organized on the second floor (again, one-by-one, by hand).  Most of this difficult and sweaty job fell to our strapping teenage son, who doesn't really seem to mind.....but it does take a L-O-N-G time and lots of muscle-power.

A friend had offered to bring his hay elevator over for us to use, but we would have needed to cut another hole in the siding of our barn.  I know that real farmers do this, but it just didn't seem right when there was a doorway that should have worked for the purpose.  Now it CAN be used for that purpose.

One day of heavy rainfall followed by another 3 inches of snow finally took it's toll on the roof that was barely hanging on as it was.  

Snow was sliding off of the gleaming new roof that was installed on the barn just this past summer.  Big channels of snow at a time, in one heavy sheet per section of metal roofing, sliding suddenly off the barn to land with a "whump" that I could hear inside the house.   

Not too long after that started, a "whump" was immediately followed by a crash, and I knew what had happened without even looking.

It's one more step towards re-working what made sense for the woodworker who lived here 15 years ago, and moving towards what makes sense for the tiny farm operation we're trying to set up now.  

Not a set-back, just a time to re-group, take a look at what we have to work with, and examine the new possibilities.

First step:  clean up the rubble!

Second step:  Decide how to build a sturdier, better designed roof with a pitch to it, but that will still protect those entering the barn from anything sliding or dripping down from the huge expanse of roof up above.

Laura

Thawing barnyard=work, work, work

The February thaw was so nice.  Yesterday it was above 40 degrees.  Today just below that.

Did I take a long walk?  No....

Play with the dogs?  Sort of.....

Did I savor the fresh air?  Yes.....in a manner of speaking.

Become inspired to do some spring cleaning?  You could say that.....

Did I get a lot done?  Well....there's always so much more that needs to be done.....but yes, a lot was accomplished in the last two days.

Maybe the biggest lesson that I learned last year was this:  

When you have the weather to shovel manure, you'd better be out there shoveling manure.  

If the winter has kept you from being able to move the animal waste because it freezes solid and stays there for months on end, you'd better be ready on the first day that you can chop through it, and you'd better not delay in getting a jump start on the clean-up (or you'll be forever behind and never catch up!)

Last spring and summer we never did get ahead of the game when it came to getting the barn cleaned up from the winter.  That meant quite a few projects that were hoped for did not even get started.  Hard to catch up when the accumulating poo is taking over the entire operation.

This year, I'm determined that it will be different.

Yesterday, I was able to get most of the dripping straw and old bedding out from where the cows sleep (and also where I milk Bessie every morning!)  I had started working on it late last week, did a little more each day (set my goal at 5 wheelbarrows full each day), and finally could scrape up what had been frozen to the cement floor when temps hit 40 degrees.  The cows don't seem to care, for what it's worth.....

 

When it's warm, I can shut the cows out of that area and keep it clean.  When it's below zero, all three cows congregate in the area which should be shoveled out every single day.  I also feed them in there instead of under the 3 sided shelter where frostbite is just waiting to happen.  

And when their "stuff" freezes so quickly, even if I COULD remove the mess every day, where do I put it when the temperature just outside the door is below zero?  Straw bedding gets thrown on top of soggy straw bedding, and the mound just grows, and grows until I can tackle it, one wheelbarrow at a time.  (Believe me, there are mounds and mounds of soiled bedding out there in the cow yard, waiting to be moved to the composting area when we can make out way through the snow.  Not the most energy-efficient way to do things, but it's one wheelbarrow at a time and (at least during this particular winter) those full wheelbarrows are lucky to be maneuvered outside of the cow's barn area, and not much farther.

Miss Bea and Buddy (pigs) got to frolic in the larger part of the barn this morning while I shoveled and shoveled and shoveled some more.  Their pen isn't exactly clean now, but it's not a sopping wet mess of thawed animal waste anymore.  

One thing with these pigs, that I should really find out more about.  Buddy likes to sideswipe and crash into my legs as he dashes around.  He is probably a solid 80 pounds, and his full weight against the front of my knee was almost enough to injure me.  I've learned how to handle cows without letting them push me around.  There must be "pig-language" for what he's doing, and that's something I'll need to tune in to, in order to avoid having my knee taken out by a boisterous piggie!

The rabbits have been living on 2 or 3 inches of frozen soiled straw in their cages, topped with fresh straw to burrow in.  Four of the five cages got a good cleaning today.  

My wrists and arms and every joint in my body seems to be screaming that I did too much.  But it had to be done, and there's a whole sheep pen to shovel out when we can un-freeze the doors that lead out from their pen to the pasture.  

This afternoon I did not enjoy the nice temperatures outside, but took a well-deserved nap.  :)

Frozen animal waste?  Imagine how the "frozen" part of things might keep the smell down.  And the nice snow covering that we've had was even nicer because it left a clean white blanket on mounds of dirty straw and other soggy stuff.

Thawing animal waste?  The time between when it thaws and when it starts to decompose into nice black compost is when you really don't want to be smelling it.  And there is a LOT of it that we'll be smelling for most of spring and summer.

With the warmer temperatures, the fresh air outside is truly smelling "fresh".  

I guess you either like it.....or you don't!  

 

Laura

Due to human error......

....and carelessness, and poor judgement, and lack of foresight.......and on and on, and on. 

And also, due to a poor choice of nesting location on the part of the mama rabbit.  

But I set her up for failure, no matter how you look at it.

Photos:  Red, the good mama rabbit, and me, the poor-planning, error-making human

Twelve tiny little lives were lost this morning.  Mama Red pulled lots of fur, made her nest, and had her babies.  Twelve of them, a whopping large litter of kits.  One would not have made it (I found him outside the nest), but the other 11 might have had a change, if only......

Back in January, I was thinking, "it might be nice to have the next litter of babies in March.  They'd be born 8 weeks from now.  When the weather starts to feel warmer and we need a touch of cuteness on the farm."

Mistake number one, which I realized with some level of horror as soon as the breeding was done.  Gestation takes only FOUR weeks for rabbits, putting the birth date smack in the middle of February, which is usually the coldest month of the year (no-one informed THIS winter that it should wait until February to be bitterly cold!).  

I had gone over it and over it in my mind, sure I was missing something.  It was such an obvious mistake that it got right past me.  Human error, on a giant scale.  Rabbits are born FOUR weeks after the male and female are put together.  Not eight.  I don't deserve to have rabbits if I can forget that easy fact.

But, plenty of people breed their rabbits for a February litter, depending on which 4-H program you are in.  Some rabbits need to be a certain age or size by the time the county fair rolls around, and the 4-H families are either breeding for that age or buying rabbits who will be that age by fair time.  Other people know what they're doing.

A few days ago, I moved her to the cage with the smallest openings in the cage wire (to keep babies from burrowing right out of the bigger cage-wire floors).  I put in the nest box, and lined it with several layers of cardboard.  Put the softest hay inside, and waited for her to build her nest inside of it.  She didn't.

Rabbit error:  She chose not to use the nest box, but burrowed down through lots of straw bedding to the bottom of the cage.  The babies were born into a nest with no bottom, literally, because the wire of the cage is all that separated them from the chill of the bunny barn.  

The huge amount of fur that she pulled was wispy and billowing all around the cage, but not inside the nest.  She was standing guard over 12 little bodies that were already chilled and no longer able to hold in the warmth that they had when they were born.

I feel awful.  I apologized to my rabbit for the mistakes I made to bring about this sad result.

And now the brow-beating begins:

I should have moved her into the house (where the dogs and cats would have terrorized her).  I should not have bred her when I did (Too true!).  I should have been less anxious for babies and more in tune with reality.  I should have.....(fill in the blank).  

It's not all my fault, of course.  Those babies would have stood better than a chance in a snug, fur-lined nest in the back of the nest box.  It's cold out, for sure, but they would have been one litter of countless litters which survived in this winter.

What it boils down to is.....If you are the one choosing the breeding time, (I was, obviously), then you (make that "I") need to choose that breeding time responsibly.  That's where I failed to take my responsibility seriously.

I'm sorry, Red, that I put you through this.  You are a good mama, and you didn't deserve to lose all of your babies because of my poor planning and even worse judgement.  

We'll do better next time.  :(

Laura

http://dykstrasfarm.blogspot.com/

Wintry morning

Photos:  Shadow and Rocky enjoying their morning fresh air, pigs Buddy and Bea helping themselves to the chicken feed (notice their smallish size compared to the normal-sized chicken also in the photo!), sheep Jethro, Iris and April munching their hay, geese relaxing in a winter's worth of wasted sheep-hay, and kitties enjoying their warm milk.  :)

Monday night, as I listened to the little weather radio telling me that it could get to -25 degrees without windchill, I had a sudden clear thought:  "This is when we could lose one or more of the animals".  

They've made it through some very cold nights (-40 with windchill one night last month!), they've shown resilience in some brutal weather, they've shown that with the proper shelter and good health they can survive in sub-zero temps for short amounts of time.....but I was starting to take all of that for granted.  

Hearing that it might be below zero by 25 degrees, WITHOUT any wind chill?  That would have been the coldest temp yet this winter.

It WAS cold that night.  Jeff remarked on how clear the sky was and how it would be a good night for star gazing if we had someplace warm to do it.  (All this while he was hauling bucket after 5 gallon bucket of water to the thirsty cows!)

I roused myself from thinking "They'll be just fine....." and went out to make the appropriate water refills and tuck everyone in for the night.

Yesterday morning?  Every critter made it through that terribly cold night.  I don't think it got down to minus-25, but it was cold in the barn that morning.  

This morning?  It felt comfortable, strangely enough.  I could take my gloves off and not wonder if my fingertips would immediately freeze.  I could shovel manure without wanting to rush back into the comfort of the house.....  Maybe it will warm up enough to get some water running through the spigot and hose and fill up the water supplies.

Something funny to share:  The pigs are still in the very large chain-link dog pen, inside the barn.  They rush the gate when I come out to bring them their food.

I've been letting them get some exercise while I feed the other animals, by letting them dash around and frolic in the larger area of the barn.  They scamper through the barn like puppies, wagging their little pig-tails and dashing around with no rhyme or reason.   Then, they squeal with delight as they find bits of grain or a broken goose egg to scarf down.  They keep checking back with my boots (yes, they seem to equate my black muck boots with "food"), bumping into my ankles and trying to twine between my legs as I walk, hoping that those boots are headed back to their pen with breakfast.  

Seeming to forget something even more important than my boots, they get even more delighted when they hear "their" lid being taken off of "their" big blue 55 gallon barrel, because that's the other signal that their breakfast won't be too much longer.  

They trip me up as the dash back and forth in front of me, and ever-so-willingly trot right back into their pen to their competition:   Which pig can eat the most food before it's all gone.  (Probably why the younger one is still overweight, because she's trying to eat as much as Buddy is eating).

Anyway, despite the cold, I can laugh at the antics of the pigs, and enjoy watching Caspian the calf scamper around out in the snow, and shake my head in amazement as the goose lays yet another egg in the trampling-zone of the sheep.....

We're sure looking forward to Thursday, when the weather-man teaser is.....it might get just above 30 degrees, and feel like spring.

 

Laura
http://dykstrasfarm.blogspot.com/

A small blessing

Well!

I spent two days going to different hardware stores, looking for a faucet adapter, or a heat cable for the outside spigot, or any number of things and gadgets that would allow me to hook up the hose to something with running water and fill the cows' water trough.  

The faucets in the house are all the wrong size, so a faucet adapter would be possible (if only I could find the right one!)

The outside spigot was frozen, even UNDERNEATH it's little styrofoam cap which was supposed to keep it from freezing.  (It worked up until this week's sub-zero wind chill)

The guys were hauling water, and then I was hauling water a half-bucket at a time (I can't manage a full 5 gallon bucket in each hand.  That's why my carpal tunnel syndrome was so bad the first year that the cows were here!)  I was bringing gallon-milk containers full of water out to the barn in the morning and again in the evening, to give the barn critters something to drink.

The nifty little "pocket hoses" work, with four 50-foot hoses hooked together to just barely reach around the back of the barn and to the water trough.  They are rather cheaply made, and you can't run water through them at much more than a trickle.  You have to pack them back up and store them without letting water freeze inside of them, or the water pressure the next time will burst the plastic ends right off of the things.  They do the job of moving water out to the back of the barn, but they DO require a source of water that will attach to the end of the first hose.....

We were stuck hauling water into the next few months, as the situation looked just yesterday morning.....

And then last night, I was bringing feed bags into the barn, and the "stuff" (droppings and bedding) underfoot was feeling a little spongy.  The top of the frozen sheep-water looked a little shiny and slushy instead of frozen and gray.  The pig water had not frozen over just yet.  The atmosphere in the barn felt almost balmy.....

So I took a chance, and carefully turned.....the.....spigot....on.......the outside of the house.  And water flowed out of it!  A minor miracle!  I didn't think we'd be able to use the hoses until we got a nice spring thaw, but the few degrees' difference made just enough difference.  

I ran the hoses at a trickle for over an hour, and the 200 gallon water trough was full.  The cows came over to investigate.  (I think they like hose water better than filtered water from the house anyway.)

Another half-hour at trickling speed, and a 55 gallon barrel in the barn was full as well.

Hoses are now carefully drained and rolled up, and  ready for the next time when the spigot is unstuck, or when we have the right type of adapter for hooking up to an indoor faucet.  

The cows have their fresh water, the sheep/pigs/geese/chickens/cats have fresh water for me to dip into inside the barn, and the boys/men get a nice reprieve from water hauling.  

Today, the outside spigot is frozen shut again.

Sometimes, things on the farm cause me to breathe an inaudible prayer of thanksgiving, and this small blessing was one of them!

Fresh water where it is needed, in the middle of the harshest winter I can remember.  

What's not to be thankful for?!

Laura
http://dykstrasfarm.blogspot.com/

Overactive imagination

Photo:  The beautiful barn from the 1920's, withstanding sub-zero temperatures, complete with glistening icicles....and still standing despite my imagination running wild last night!

The current waking nightmare at 2:00 this morning (note to readers---this only happened in my MIND!):

The nightmare:  The barn burns to the ground and we don't even wake up to know it's happening.  Everything inside is lost, which (obviously) includes all of the barnyard menagerie which have been closed into the barn for safety.  I start up from a sound sleep, panicking, and my brain commences to play out the entire gruesome scene from initial spark to igniting hay loft to crashing roof to smoldering remains......

A few days ago, while looking on-line for building plans to build a few stalls inside the barn, I came across a "thread" with hundreds of entries, all about barns burning to the ground, losing everything, and "safe" electricity inside a barn (IS there such a thing, with all the flammable bedding and hay and stuff that would go up in flames with the slightest spark?)

About the same time, I typed out a reply to a chicken group about what the area farmers have warned us about.  (As transplants to farm life, we have occasionally had a vet or friendly farmer give us strong warnings about extension cords, heat lamps, and the risk of causing a fire in our  noble effort to keep the animals warm).  The one story that our friend Bruce told me is:  A family moved to the country and burned down their 100  year old barn fairly soon afterward.  They had a pet rabbit that they were keeping in the big empty barn, they wanted him to be warm, they set up a heat lamp over his cage, and......when the heat lamp broke or malfunctioned or heated the straw inside the cage to combustion temperatures, the rabbit and the entire barn went up in flames.

So, it's on my mind, especially with the cold.  Have I taken enough measures to keep the barn from burning to ashes during the dead of the night?

We've cut way back on the use of extension cords, and currently have only one heavy-duty "outdoor" rated one in the barn, which provides the electricity to keep the cow water-trough from freezing solid.  It stretches from the grounded outlet that Jeff installed, out the window, past the cow shelter, and down to where the tank de-icer plugs into it.  The same extension cord powers the charger for the electric fence, when I need to use that.  It's still a potential source of malfunction, but it's a necessary evil at this point.

Once in a while, I use a smaller extension cord to keep a 55 gallon barrel of water de-iced, but it's so cold out there right now that the bird-bath de-icer is no match for sub-zero temperatures....meaning that THAT particular extension cord is not one I can obsess over at 2 in the morning!

I no longer hang heat-lamps (those red ones that use 250 watts and could start a fire just by having dry material next to the bulb!).  The animals are much healthier, too, without all the supplemental heat.  And truth-be-told, unless the animals were very close to the lamp, the heat was lost quickly in the vast space of the barn.  (One sick chicken insisted on sleeping directly under a lamp which was meant for smaller growing chicks, and had scorched the feathers on her back.  Not safe, although it is rather humorous to imagine a scorching chicken running around and igniting flames everywhere.  Or not....)

To get electricity to the rabbit shed, I have two extension cords connected, running under the snow from the outside outlet of the house.  The rabbits have heated water bottles and a light in their shed, and there IS the possibility of fire out there because of the extension cords.  Oddly enough, I don't sit up in a panic in the middle of the night  because of a vivid image of the shed burning.  It's always the barn.

So last night's panic revolved around the outlet that Jeff installed most recently.  It's in the cow area, and is much appreciated.  It lets me plug in a light, which is suspended securely (high enough that they couldn't break the bulb, secure enough that the lamp itself couldn't be knocked off a nail and land in the dry straw where the cows sleep.)

The outlet is extra-nice, in that Jeff also installed a light switch, so that I can turn the whole outlet "off" when I want to.  I keep a nightlight plugged in, and the light, and it's got one of those low-wattage spiral bulbs in it.....but it still played a part in keeping me awake last night.

Why?  It's a long, twisted story, and really shouldn't have resulted in any panic of any sort.  

The spiders in a barn leave webs all over.  Those webs gladly attract all the dust that chickens and bedding fluff up into the air.  The spider webs then clump together in unsightly dusty masses.  The combined webs are strong enough to hold bits of flammable material.  

And this is a fire hazard because?  All around the light, all around that particular outlet are dusty clumps of webbing, covered with tiny bits of straw and hay.  I know that Jeff installed the outlet correctly, but at the same time, I'm being irresponsible by leaving all that flammable stuff right near a source of potential fire.  Would you feel safe if an outlet inside of your house was covered in something so easily ignited?

At 2 in the morning, in my mind's eye, those bits of spider-webs somehow caught fire, started the cows' bedding on fire, which engulfed the entire barn in no time, and left a pile of smoldering ashes for us to discover in the morning and grieve the losses.  (Yes, it's that vivid, like the worst nightmare when you can't get away from the tiniest details.  The scenarios play out in my mind while I'm wide awake in bed and debating whether to throw on jackets to go out RIGHT THEN to right the situation!  Scary!)

One good thing when this happens is that my mind won't quite playing through the most awful circumstances, detail by detail, until I truly give the whole situation up to God, asking Him to protect the people or critters who are in danger in my imagination.  I am awake anyway, and can't get back to sleep.  What better thing to do that say "God, I KNOW it's in Your hands.  Please reassure me that I can leave their safety with You until the morning".  Usually, that's enough to cause me to finally give up the hellish picture in my mind and be at peace again.

The other good thing about this "awfulizing"  (my Mom's word?  My Aunt's word?) is that it spotlights what needs attention.  If you jerk awake in the dead of night over something you didn't think was a problem until just then, why not reason through it and see if there's a solution?  Sometimes I can't do anything about it.  Sometimes it gives me the task for the next day, which results in a safer environment for animals, children, family.....

So today's task, after the feeding, and the watering, and the milking?  Cleaning cobwebs away from the beautiful outlet that brings much-needed electricity to the cow's shelter area.  

I might wake up with a dreadful scenario playing in my mind tonight, but it won't be the same one as what kept me awake until early this morning, that's for sure!

God is good.  (All the time!)  

At 2 in the morning when my poor, overtired brain can't let go of a nightmarish "reality"?  (All the time!)

Laura
http://dykstrasfarm.blogspot.com/

Coping with the cold

Over the past few days, it's been very obvious how resilient our animals are, at the same time that they are totally dependent on us.  They have the warm winter coats that we hot-house humans lack, but.....they can't get their own water, and they desperately need shelter, whether it's inside the barn, in the rabbit shed, or just the 3-sided additions to the barn where the cows live.

While I put on long underwear, turtlenecks, sweatshirts, two or three jackets, hat, gloves, scarf and boots, the animals are breathing out clouds of moisture and not really seeming to be too upset that it's colder than a typical January should be.  But take away their shelter, or forget to bring fresh water out to them, and there would be some fatalities as a result of that kind of neglect.....

It's been below zero, with wind chill low enough that the kids' schools called for two days off because of the extreme cold.  

The spigot on the outside of the house is frozen, and (even if it wasn't frozen), the hoses wouldn't work.  Jeff and Michael have been hauling 5 gallon buckets of water to the cows' water trough, trying to keep it half-full so that the de-icer can work to it's potential and keep a small opening melted in the ice on top of the trough.  (Bessie herself can drink a whopping 30 gallons of water each and every day).

Michael took the water-hauling task to the extra-ordinary level yesterday, leaping over the livestock gate because the snow drift wouldn't allow it to open (although Jeff and I had to chuckle.....because a few swipes with the snow shovel would have cleared the path with much less trouble).  Much more fun to hoist buckets over a 4 foot fence, and then vault over it yourself.....

One night, I thought the little calf was in trouble.  He doesn't like me, so every time I go out by the cows, he bolts out the door.  This time, it was frigidly cold, with the wind whistling right in the open doorway, and there he was, huddled in a little ball on top of the matted down straw, right in the line of wind/snow/chill.  Mama Bessie usually positions herself in front of him, and he can bask in the glow of her warmth as she shields him from the weather.

I brought fresh straw out and nearly covered him, and he didn't move.  Only when I put a clump of fresh alfalfa hay in front of his nose did he perk up, and when I tried to scratch behind his ears, he finally hoisted himself up to get away from me.  

That's when I debated:  

Do I close the door, stop the wind from whistling in all night, but block the access to drinking water for the night?

Or do I leave the door open and allow the wind and wind chill (minus 30 degrees!) to blast the cows all night long just so that they can get water at some imaginary point during the dead of night.

It seemed obvious---cows who have frozen to death wouldn't need much water.  So the door was shut, and they were cozy for the night, and (surprisingly enough), there was no stampede out the door and to the water trough in the morning when I opened it for them again.  And little Caspian was his usual spunky self after a night spent without the wind thoroughly chilling him.

The next day, it was apparent that whenever little Miss Bea, the guinea hog piglet, was out from her snug burrow of straw and hay, that she was quickly chilled.  The pigs' temporary home is inside the barn, out of drafts, in a large chain link dog kennel with about a foot and a half of straw for bedding.  Buddy, the older pig, has coarse black hair that seems to keep him somewhat warm, but Bea's hair is still sparse and short, better suited for a summer piglet than a piglet trying to survive the winter.  

Of course, to get any food when they see me coming, they can't stay under their bedding, so they come out squealing, shoving, pushing, and jostling for position.  She is still less than half the size of the big guy, but she sure holds her own.  Three times that day, she shoved for her rightful portion of slop, and then shivered as she nosed around for any scraps that they'd missed.  

I dumped in more straw for them to burrow in, and made a bank of straw bales on the outside of the chain link, to help hold in the heat around their chosen bedroom corner.  (It didn't help that she had tried to bed down next to a frozen-solid pumpkin before Buddy came back to lie down after eating.  Nothing warm about that!)

I was worried for her, and even remarked to Jeff "Well, if the little pig is getting sick because it's so cold, I'll be setting up a dog crate and bringing her into the house.  She can become friends with the dogs and have the run of the kitchen".  That was met with a look of alarm, which is why I added the last teasing sentence......so it's good that it didn't come to that!

I'm not worried about her extra fat at this point.  Seeing her shiver yesterday was enough to remind me that she is small enough to be grateful for the extra layer of warmth.  Today she seemed just fine.

This morning, Bessie was shivering uncontrollably after she was let out for a long drink of very cold water.  

It worried me for a while, because.....well, MAYBE the cold was going to prove too much for the old girl.  And if it was too much for HER, then her calf was in danger.  And if Bessie was having trouble, the heat of the steer and the smaller calf would not be enough to warm her back up.  And if she laid down and couldn't hoist herself back up, we'd have a big problem getting her into the main part of the barn (which wasn't much warmer than where she was, anyway).

Then, I texted a friend, who said the same thing.  Her cow drank 5 gallons of cold water first thing this morning, and was shivering uncontrollably.  

I started thinking about it.....a one-thousand pound animal, nice and cozy all night, drinks 5 gallons or more of ice-cold water all at once.  It would be like me eating a bowl of ice cream and getting goosebumps on a 90 degree day.  

Bessie lost her night-time warmth to get to the water trough, and then her body had to warm that huge amount of icy water as it sat in her stomach and sapped the heat out of her.  No wonder her haunches were reacting with violent shivers.  

Just to be sure, I checked on them all mid-day.  With the door left half-way open since the morning, the wind had shifted just slightly to the north (meaning that it didn't whistle directly out of the west and straight into the cows' bed-chambers), Bessie and crew were contentedly munching, not shivering, and doing just fine.  They looked up at me as if to ask "Well, what are YOU doing out here?  We weren't expecting you!"  and then nearly dove into the fresh hay that I brought out for them.

Rabbits?  Fine, as long as they get fresh water at least twice a day and extra straw and hay for bedding.  Although now we've kept Sheila's babies long past the 12 week mark, and they need to be brought to the butcher ASAP, before there is a case of sibling incest to deal with.....

Chickens?  The rooster died before the temperatures reached extreme lows, and one hen is growing in more than half of her feathers (she looks a bit like a pincushion at the moment).  Otherwise, they're fine.

Ducks/Geese:  Happily splashing in the water dishes, leaving messes behind themselves all over the barn, nibbling the hay and straw, and.....two of the geese don't seem to realize that it's the middle of winter, because they have been taking turns laying one huge egg in their nest each day.  The eggs aren't fertile yet, so the piggies get a nice fattening goose egg almost every day, which isn't such a bad deal for them.

Sheep:  No problem.  They prefer a frozen pumpkin to fresh water, they eat the leftover hay that the cows think is beneath their standards, they mob the grain bowl when they get fed.....they have such thick wool that you have to look hard to see eyes in those happy faces.

Barn cats?  Doing fine.  I take pity on them and make sure they have plenty of cheap cat food in the winter, because the rodents don't seem to come out often enough to supply any sort of reliable food source this time of year.

Oh, the cats LOVE, love, love their little tins of warm milk, and the pigs now know what sounds mean that I have a bucket of fresh milk, and they squeal at the top of their lungs in anticipation of warm milk to fill their tummies.

We ARE a bit off schedule with the milking, though.  I take pity on more than just the barn cats when the temps get down this low.  

All three cows sleep together when it's this cold.  It seems cruel to put Caspian in a stall when he could so easily get chilled without the heat of other cows close by, so he gets to sleep cuddled next to mama Bessie, and then he helps himself to all the warm milk he can fit into his tummy in the morning.  Leaving none for us, or for the barn cats, or for the always-hungry piggies.

Good thing the cold snap is about to give us a break, because we are down to our last gallon of milk.  Little Caspian needs to sleep in his stall, and we need to get back to our school/farm routines, complete with fresh milk on a daily basis.

 

Laura