BRRRRRRR It's Cold: Animal Update

I took this photo of the chickens eating breakfast on Christmas Eve morning.  They are a beautiful group aren't they!

For those of you that wonder what the temps are like in the barn and how the animals cope they do quite well.  If the temp outside is hovering around 20 degrees it is typically 32-34 inside the barn because of the horses.  Horses, as they eat and digest hay, create heat so in a sense they are the furnaces of the barn.  We had done quite a bit of insulating in the barn as well so it is quite cozy.  The temp outside this morning was 12 degrees without the wind chill taken into account and it was around 30 in the barn.  Last year I was dealing with frozen buckets and a frozen water holding tank every day.  So far so good this year due to the new insulation.  Last night was the first time so far that there was a very thin layer of ice on the water holding tank.  Not bad at all.

Morgan, our pot bellied pig, finds warmth under a big bed of straw with fleece blankets.  The chickens have their thick feathers and are doing very well so far without a heater.  Laying lots of eggs!  Bad Blake, our barn cat, has lots of coziness in his "apartment" in the barn and if needed we have a heating pad for him that we have yet to need.  Last year you could feel the wind in the barn.  Now it is as quiet as winter itself.