Snow! In Texas! AGAIN!!!

[Baymule]

Sheep were ok this morning. Demanding to be fed, and yelling at me! Their water buckets were frozen over.

You can see how open the barn is, heat is more of a problem than cold is! The small dark square on the left is the original 8’x8’ shelter I built for our first 4 ewes. It’s deep bedded and the lambs are snuggled down in it.

our lawn chairs.

 

[farmerjan]

That's alot for anyone in the "south" to have to face. I can imagine that it is more than you hope to see for the next 20 years.... Looks more like what we would normally get here in a storm....

We are getting misty rain, no ice now but calling for it again tonight. Then Wed/Thurs looks to be a mean B@$#H with snow and ice....

Do what you can do. The sheep will eat snow so don't go crazy. Honestly, they will cope with it as long as they can get in under the dry and have hay to keep their rumination up. That creates body heat. Steer will be fine also. Water once a day would be sufficient if you get to that point. I KNOW...... we deal with it all the time.

 

[Baymule]

We got our “normal “ snow in January. By day 3 it was gone. But THIS! And y’all know what? We got MORE coming Thursday! The birds are tearing up the birdseed peanut butter balls BJ made. A woodpecker swooped in, pecking the other birds so he could have more for himself! LOL LOL

 

[farmerjan]

Aren't 'cha glad for the stockpile of food????? This is what the old timers used to prepare for. God Bless

 

[Simpleterrier]

Good thing u have 5 yrs of wood stacked up and a good generator and some extra gas. Ha ha does anyone in Texas even have a wood stove?

Just a heads up don't waste the time and money and energy taking hot water out. It will freeze faster.

Does anyone down there even sell tank htrs? I got three and three spare ones.

That looks like a normal winter to me starts at Thanksgiving and ends at Easter.

Is your power out I heard alot of people lost power?

And always have a heat source and a back up heat source and a back up to your back up and a backup to your backup backup.

I got a lp boiler, a heat pump, a natural gas furnace and a wood burner. We are covered.

 

[farmerjan]

The difference @Simpleterrier is that they hardly never ever get this kind of weather.... I get the being prepared.... and believe me I bet everyone of the members here that are in Texas will find some sort of back up for the future... even if they never use it in their lifetime.....A 2-4 inch snow that is gone in 24-48 hours.... I mean, if it was something that was even remotely in the radar, the TX Dept of Trans would have a few plows or salt spreaders..... in the off chance....

 

[farmerjan]

The hot water will melt some of the ice and then as it is chilled, it will not freeze faster. And it will give the animals a chance to drink more of the cold - but melted ice - water.....

 

[Baymule]

For most of my life I've had a gas heater or wood heater, but not at this place. Texas is HOT, not cold. Winter is maybe down in the 30's for very short periods of time. To get blasted like this is unheard of. Record breaking temperatures since 1909 and 1930, below zero, that just doesn't happen, but it did!

@Simpleterrier as usual your wry humor makes me laugh.

This place is all electric, we haven't lost power-yet. Our water pipes haven't frozen. I've spent enough time under a house with a hair dryer that I learned how to avoid that.

The boiling water DOES melt the ice and it doesn't freeze faster, it just freezes. But at least the animals get a drink. Don't have any tank heaters.

 

[messybun]

With that barn I wonder if you could pin up a few extra tarps on one side to block out a little more wind? I know when we had a snow a few years back (it was less than a foot, but we were new to animals and didn’t know how sturdy they were) we stacked hay bales to make one of the shelters more closed in. Your barn is too big to do that, but I wondered if you had something laying around that you could put up? Heck, with all the snow you could make a half shelter half igloo lol!

 

[Baymule]

There is a small shelter, it was the first shelter I built. So they have a windbreak of sorts,

More snow last night, maybe 3”. I ran out to feed the birds, we’ve gone through 50 pounds! There must be 100-200 at a time. Blue Jays, Cardinals, Woodpeckers, Red Wing Blackbirds, Chickadees, Finches to name a few. They are hungry!