Unity Farm Journal - Second Week of January 2015

It’s -6F this morning on the farm.   We expect negative temperatures during the second and third week of January every year, so we have to prepare the animals, infrastructure, and equipment.The alpacas and dogs have the benefit of a small oil-filled space heater in the barn which raises the internal temperature of the building about 10 degrees.    Protected from the wind, rain, sleet, snow, and ice, the animals curl up together in hay covered stalls, sharing bodily warmth while minimizing heat loss due to convection, conduction, and radiation.   See my previous post on staying warm in New England The chickens and guineas have 4 flat panel heaters mounted on the ceiling and walls of the coop.   The coop is dry and the floor is raised off the ground a foot.  Between the heaters and the 80 birds roosting in the space, the temperatures are 20-30 degrees above the ambient air temperatureThe ducks generally prefer to be outside, but their duck house has 1 flat panel heater and is protected from the wind.    Today they are all inside their duck house.The Japanese fountain in the moss garden is shut off - evening moving water freezes at -6F.The equipment on the farm - the Terex tractor, the commercial mower, the wood splitter, the chainsaw, the blower, and the brush cutter have all been prepped for winter.  I’ve added diesel or gas stabilizer as appropriate to each device and filled their tanks to 90% capacity in an effort to redu...
Source: Life as a Healthcare CIO - Category: Technology Consultants Source Type: blogs