Long time, no eggs

We have had warmer temperatures the past few days...almost up to freezing...but not quite.

I'm afraid we may not see eggs from our chickens until spring. Chickens need 40 F days in order to lay. They aren't getting that here. We have decided to give away our older flock of hens and have someone coming to pick up the 16 chickens in the big coop. We are hoping to save a few dollars without having to feed them. Organic chicken feed is expensive, especially when they aren't laying any eggs for us to sell. We could build them a better coop with windows and passive solar gain, but that's more money and we need to spend time and money on the big barn before the goats start kidding.

Old chicken flock

 

We are keeping the Buff Orpingtons that we got last spring. There are ten of them, which is about perfect for our egg needs. Of course, they aren't laying now either, but we are considering building another addition on the big barn, which will allow some of the solar gain heat to spill over into the goat barn.

The turkeys and rabbits have the warmest house of the bunch. It's all closed in, has a big window across the south side, and adobe bricks against the back wall.

We haven't been able to get to a city to pick up those Lexon panels for the goat barn, so Richard used some leftover plastic form his cold tunnel projects to cover the space where the panels will go. It isn't quite the same, but it does let light and some warm sun into the barn while cutting out the wind and the cold.

Plastic sheeting on goat/llama barn

Because our temperatures are so low, the snow we got at the end of November is still hanging around. It's sad when 0 F feels good, and at night when the temperatures have been falling to -10 or so, 0 is a good thing.

kids' yard

I am still fantasizing about moving to Las Vegas, NM, even though they have been having their own water problems. Wells are drying out and the reservoir has been down for a few years now. I don't understand why more people are not utilizing the legality of collecting rainwater. With 16 to 17 inches of precipitation  a year, it seems like an easy answer to many of the water concerns. But maybe not and things might be more complicated than they appear. At any rate, I found a house over that way that is wonderful, and that we can't afford right now, but staring at it on the internet keeps my spirits up.