Before weather reports bombarded us with storm tracking, our predecessors would observe their flocks or herds for changes in their behavior, noticing telltale signs that storms were on the way. Animals are sensitive to changes in barometric pressure in ways that humans aren’t. They can pick up the scent of coming rain or snowstorms before we do.
I’ve been reading about the behavioral ecologist Martin Wikelski and his modern-day tracking of animals’ movements. Wikelski, an ornithologist and director of the Max Planck Institute of Animal Behavior in Radolfzell, Germany, has been investigating the ways birds, goats, and other animals seem to have a sixth sense when it comes to extreme natural phenomena. He has documented, for example, the way goats living near Etna in Sicily run from the area days before a volcanic eruption. Now Wikelski is at work on a program to track animals from space to help scientists better predict weather patterns and natural disasters such as earthquakes and tsunamis.
While this sounds fantastically futuristic, anyone who takes care of farm animals can tell you that they certainly seem to know when a storm is on the way. On the day before Saturday’s blizzard, we saw that our hens were spending more time close to their house. The ladies were noticeably on edge, pecky, and bossy. Restlessness was visible in our paddock, too: our goats bumped horns, pushed one another, and cried for extra food as the evening drew near.
Our blizzard preparations include steps to ensure that our animals will stay safe and warm. We filled our chicken house with extra hay and screwed a piece of plywood over the small windows, leaving a crack for air to come through, but not enough of an opening that snow could blow in. A blizzard is really the only time we lock our chickens into their house. As long as chickens stay dry, they can weather temperatures in the teens and lower by huddling in groups and burrowing in hay.
A backyard farmer knows to be stocked up on feed before a storm. But water is important, too. Be ready to bring water out regularly if the power goes out, as heated winter buckets will freeze over. We leave a few treats out on the floor of the coop — something we normally strictly avoid so as not to attract rodents. These will give the hens something to do when being in close quarters makes them grumpy.
In “goat-town,” as we call our paddock, we narrowed the opening of the shelter, leaving only enough space for a single goat to squeeze through. Then we filled their home with lots of hay to lie in and munch on. Just before the goats settled in for the night on Friday, I brought them a generous serving of sweet, fruit-based feed and some carrots and banana peels — their favorite foods. The extra nutrition would help them get through the morning if conditions were too dangerous for us to venture out to feed them first thing.
It’s hard to wait, though. Early, I bundled up to stomp out into the storm and make sure the animals were all right. Neither the chickens nor the goats had budged from their respective houses. In our Alpine cabin-coop, the ladies were huddled in close possies. They had no interest in even peeking through the open door. Chickens hate snow even more than goats do and can get frostbite on their feet if they walk out in icy conditions.
You can tell if a chicken is too cold by looking at her: her feathers are ruffled, she hunches down or stands on one foot and her comb will be paler than usual. Our flock looked fine. I had spoiled them with a bowlful of hot spaghetti during the storm. Russell brought them a bowl of oatmeal to celebrate the sunshine on Sunday.
At the goat house, Buttercup, our big lady, had parked herself, backside against the opening, to block the snow and wind and keep the rest warm inside. The goats nudged us with their noses as if to agree with what we were all feeling: whew, the storm is over. Then Lance Romance led the herd on a quick run-about from house to feeder, plowing a path through the snow.