Like most we have some snow ! and the weather is bitterly cold , 6 miles up the road they recorded the lowest temp since records began for Wales -18C ! that is cold . At 10am it was still -7!
We have moved the boys back into their field , which is earlier than I would have liked , another couple of weeks and the pastures would be cleaner , but then the cold weather will help, however the forecast is for blizzards on Tues and their field provides much more natural shelter since they refuse to use the shelters!
The mums and babies are all doing well , plenty of fresh hay and they are happy. We have been getting the barns made up to house them on Tues , they really don't like to come in , but I cannot stand the stress of having them out when the weather is really bad.
The chickens are pretty unimpressed with the weather , I have a few who are snuffly and have sticky eyes , but a dose of antibiotics should be sorting that out , except for one of my legbars , who has a truly terrible eye . If you are squeamish read no further ! She has had the eye closed now for 4 days , after the first day I started antibiotics for the whole flock , since I felt it was more than just a cold , and I started to wipe her eye twice a day. It still sealed itself between wipes and began to swell to massive proportions , recently I cannot see the eyeball which is obscured by a thick , foul smelling cheese like gunk. I have been washing this out as best I can - chickens do not make good patients and continually twitch and try to get away - so far a huge amount of this 'stuff' has come out , but I think their may be an end in sight , it seems to be less each time ( albeit is still a huge amount and foul) I just hope her eye is OK underneath . I am loathed to visit the vet , the cost being so much more than the chicken ! but equally I don't want her to suffer unnecessarily , what to do? At the moment she seems to be quite bright and is eating and drinking , not quite as perky as the rest of the flock , but not sickly unless you see her eye.
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