Thursday, January 15, 2009

It's cold

The electrician finished electrifying the barn just in time. According to the forecast (which I never quote as fact) it's supposed to get down to -4 tonight. The chickens all have their heated waterers plugged in. The goat has a heating pad, but I wish I had a blanky for her. Treely (the horse) has her blanket on and everybody's got lots of hay/feed to munch to keep their body heat up. I know animals up north have it way worse, but I feel like I'm not doing enough.

I wish I had more heat lamps for the adolescent chicks. I accidentally burned through the wire on my good one while I was cleaning the brooders. I didn't realize it was on and left the bulb sitting on the wire. I left to go clean the waterers and came back to smoldering rubber. Oops! Could have burned the shed down. So, now I'm afraid to use it, though it does still work. haha...somehow it doesn't seem worth the risk of burning down the barn and HAY (OMG NOO!!) not to mention the animals and all that fancy electric work. Any horse person would understand my worry of losing my hay mid winter. It's not like I can just go out and buy more...well, not unless I don't mind paying $10/bale to have it shipped in from California...For the record, I would mind that.

Here's a picture of Treely in her blanket from last year. Do you know how hard it is to find a size 84 ?! I did take a picture of her today in her blanket, but it looks kind of silly because it's so sunny. It looks like it is about 95 degrees outside instead of 15.

2 comments:

  1. Pick up a ceramic heater. They put out good heat, have a thermostat and shut off it they get knocked over so it won't start a fire. I'm from the frozen tundra "up north" and trust me, your birds and goat will be fine even with the low temps you're getting down there this year. Our windchills are running -20+ and mine are fine without any heated devices. Just trough heaters to keep the water from freezing.

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