Traumatic incident with the chickens

Sounds like a headline more than a blog post title. It feels like a news report, too. Not fun at all. :(

First off, I will give you a picture of the culprit in this story:

Billy Sue, wearing her bear bells and Sport Dog e-collar

It's been in the minus 30's (degrees Celcius), which is like the minus 30's in degrees Fahrenheit, too. One day the internet said we were the coldest place on Earth! Anyway, the chickens were doing okay; we borrowed a heat lamp from Bear Valley Rescue, and got a heated dog dish for their water. Chickens are surprisingly hardy! Birds, as it happens, adapt to the cold temperatures more readily than mammals. There is less perspiration (none, in fact, for chickens!) and they are covered in down, which they can fluff up to trap their body heat against their skin.

Neil and his Alice's basking in the heat lamp's glow

Anyway, with the cold temperatures came a blizzard. Our neighbour said he hadn't seen that much snow in 20 years! The wind was crazy, so there were snowdrifts 4 feet high in some places. 

The drift that we had to shovel through in order to park the truck

The chicken run had a large drift a few feet away from the entrance to the coop, which blocked the view I usually have from the kitchen window.

The drift that cuts right through the chicken run

I left the little square chicken-door open for a couple of hours yesterday because it was really sunny out for the first time in days and days. I didn't think the chickens would actually go outside, but I figured they'd get a smidge of natural light for a bit. I really didn't imagine they would go outside. And I certainly didn't think that Billy Sue would find a way into their yard (our front yard)...

I was wrong. :( Remember that 4 foot high drift out by our truck? Well, it went right over our fence! Billy just climbed right on up and walked along the drift into the yard! How could I forget that drift... :(

I heard an awful sound coming from behind the snow drift, and I realized Billy was missing. I called her name from the front door, and out she popped from behind that drift. She came right to me, and I had to take care of the other dogs inside for a few minutes. I had a terrible feeling in the pit of my stomach. I went out to the coop and found Trumpeter Alice lying face down in front of the coop entrance, nearly encased in ice (presumably Billy's slobber from a few minutes earlier!). I brought her inside and held her in the bathroom to warm her up. I was relieved her neck didn't seem broken and there was only a tiny bit of blood coming from around her beak.

When my partner came home, we went out to the coop to check on the others. They were all alive, but barely. Neil the Rooster was cowering and missing all his tail feathers. We brought them all inside and checked them out, cleaned them up, and put them in dog crates.

The most grievously injured two are Brownie Alice and Fatty Alice, in far L crate. We put White Alice and Trumpeter Alice in the middle one together (they are less injured), and Neil on his own in the far R crate.

We cleaned the two hens who got the worst of it, just with warm water, and put Dermagel on all of them. They were all eating last we checked, and communicating with each other.

I will keep you updated.