It's been a long, cold winter and even now in mid March, barely a week from the vernal equinox, old momma Nature ain't giving up yet. To those of you in happily warmer climes that may have never seen anything like this, these are sundogs. They're caused by reflection of sunlight in airborne ice crystals and are a sign that Baby, it's cold outside!
Today should hopefully be the last subzero day (I think we were at about -2F at 6:00 AM) before next December (hopefully!!) as the forecast shows a steady, rapid warming trend for the rest of the week. The birds have fared well through the winter; I doubt the ducks even noticed.
Both roosters and two of the hens have some frostbite on their combs from back in December when the temp. plummetted. At the time I had all the vents open and experience showed me that I only needed one. I think the roosters got the frostbite because their combs were tall enough to protrude into the wind from the north vent that I subsequently closed off.
Tossed my share of frozen eggs, but by and large everyone looks OK. I'm averaging 3-4 eggs/day since the "shutdown" in January and the eggs are getting larger. When it warms up I will probably let them hatch a clutch.
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