It’s been a mild winter hereabouts. The overnight temperature never dropped to zero until last Friday night, and it didn’t fall into negative numbers until last night. When I took the dogs out at 5:30 this morning, the thermometer on the deck out back read 8 below.
So I didn’t know how “the girls” would react when feeding time rolled around as dawn broke. They’ve survived temps even colder than this — 15 below, one year — but I thought they might refuse to emerge from the coop this morning, having been spoiled by our good luck this winter.
I rarely feed the hens in the coop, but I decided to do so today. Snow, Nellie and Hope were still roosting when I arrived on the scene, so I put their feed and water bowls inside. That’s when Snow, our Plymouth Rock, hopped down from the roost and headed for the door leading out to the pen.
Despite the sub-zero temperatures outside and the presence of food and water inside, Snow wanted out. I opened the door. Sure enough, after the briefest hesitation, Snow sauntered down the ramp into the pen, followed by Nellie. So I moved the feed bowl from the coop to its normal resting spot in the pen, where Snow and Nellie settled into the serious business of tackling their breakfast. Hope remained on the roost, but she rarely gets up as quickly as the other hens, so that was nothing out of the ordinary.
I headed back to the house, but when I looked out the window a few minutes later, the pen was empty. The hens had retreated into the coop. That’s when I decided I should have followed my instincts the first time around. Donning coat, hat and gloves, I went back out to the coop, moved the feed bowl from the pen into the coop, and locked the hens inside to shield them from the wind and the cold.
I figure I’ll let them out again once it warms up outside later this morning. You know, when the temperature shoots up to a balmy zero or so.
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