Warm Winter Days

So for the last three or four weeks, it's been pretty cold, not like ice planet Hoth cold, but enough to freeze things over. My rabbits are comfortable with their new run that I built. It keeps them out of the elements, and my quail are O.K. too, however the cold hit about three days after I put out my barrel of trout. So the barrel froze over, and even though I would break the ice every now and then to look to see how the fish were doing, I could never see any. It appeared that it got too cold for them, and they all died. I never turned on the pump, so the water wasn't being filtered, and there was close to no oxygen in the water since it was just sitting there under a thick layer of ice. A couple days ago, it finally warmed up long enough to melt the ice layer in the barrel. I decided to check on the barrel, and I opened the lid, and much to my astonishment, all the fish were just sitting there. They must have dove to the bottom of the barrel where it was warmer. The barrel is about 1/3 buried in the ground, and probably was a bit more survivable there. I'm just surprised they did so well with so little oxygen. I suppose that their bodies slow down to conserve energy during cold weather. they don't really eat either. So things are still going well, we actually moved one of my rabbits inside as well. My wife picked out this rabbit as a baby, and has been her favorite since then, so we trained it to use a litter box, and it hops around our house. It's actually kind of fun. And since she's inside where it's warm, within the next few days, I may have her mate with one of my bucks to get some babies. That's where we're at so far.