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Thursday, February 9, 2012

Peculiar Poultry Predicament

What an unusual winter!  We just got out of a 2 month stretch of really cold (I'm guessing we averaged 25 below for that length) and now it's above freezing!  Most lower 48-ers might think that's a good thing, but here it's dreaded in the winter.  Thawing snow and ice means that the roads get slicker than snot and all the melting turns into a big mess, then when it freezes again, you have all the bad ice to worry about.  I consider myself blessed to be able to stay at home today, but I find myself with my own set of challenges accompanying this heat wave.   The ice and snow have apparently cracked the caulking around our chimney, so we're getting some leaking with the melting roof snow there.

And then there's my chickens.  Oh, I am learning so much with these girls this year!  I had been attempting the deep litter method with them (see this article), but with this thaw came an awful stench in there coop!  So I started digging it all out (I couldn't before as the lower layers were completely frozen) and unearthed at least a half dozen eggs.  Apparently, during our really cold months, they had buried some of their eggs (normal chicken behavior?)  The eggs then froze, cracking the shell.  And now these eggs were rotten and thawing--yuk!  I got it all cleaned up now, but what an ordeal.  I think I'm going to have to adjust my game plan for next year.

Proverbs 12: 10a " A righteous man cares for the needs of his animals"  I love that God chose to include this in His Word!  He did give us dominion over His creatures and I think that's a great commission.  Obviously I don't believe this means we shouldn't hunt or butcher, but that we should not be cruel to the critters we come across or choose to care for.

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