Wait 15 minutes

We all dress in layers in Colorado because the weather can vary from hour to hour.  People say that you just need to wait 15 minutes for a weather change.  Yesterday was a warm day.  Papa Hen and I went for a bike ride and walked all over town last night looking at holiday lights.

The girls enjoyed the warm weather and had quite a busy time in the yard.

Today the snow started and the girls stayed busy in the coop with a few tightly packed bales of hay. 

We haven't had straw in the coop for awhile since we discovered lice on the chickens one Sunday afternoon a few weeks back.

What we think happened is that we filled the coop with a lot of straw when we had the below freezing cold spell in November.  Then we got lazy and didn't clean out the straw when the weather warmed up.  Straw, warm water, and the occasional water spill can breed lice.  Poor chickens!  We've done two major coop cleanings since then and have given each hen a weekly dusting of Diatomaceous Earth.  So far, so good.  Knock on wood that the lice does not return!