The chickens are in the coop

Well, today they were anyway. The coop is pretty much done!  It is (hopefully) predator-proof, now it has just about everything except nest boxes and roosts in the henhouse. It'll probably also get a paint job at some point. Here are the girls enjoying what will be their new home. We'll probably start putting them outside during the day and bringing them back into the basement at night this week, then they'll be outdoors full-time.

Brave new world pt. 2

The chickens had another adventure today.  They got to kick it outside again, and meet a BABY!  It was a cute-off for sure.

Brave new world

The chickens had their first taste of outdoor chickenhood today - we let them wander around on the lawn in the sun for a while.  With the dogs locked inside, staring intently through the sliding glass door and whining.  We should've taken a picture of that.  The chickens enjoyed pecking and scratching around in the real world, and they didn't even get eaten by any crows or anything, joy!

Living room

New avocado-colored chair and globe in the living room. Same crazed dog.

Teenagers

So many feathers!

Adventures in chicken-raising

We brought the chicks outside on the deck today for some sun and excitement.

 They were fairly calm about the whole thing, and I found out that if you pet the back of their neck they really like it. Also, they're already getting their feathers - you can kind of see here that their wings are almost completely feathered.

Hopefully they'll remember the good times we had snuggling and be really friendly their whole lives.

In the meantime, the coop is coming along quite nicely! We let two of the chicks check it out this evening - two girls one coop.  One of them pooped, which we'll take as a sign of approval.

We didn't want Dakota to feel left out, so we let her have a turn in the nascent henhouse as well. What a goof.

This is the foundation of the coop - the frame has chicken wire loosely attached to the bottom, then dirt shoveled over it.  This will hopefully keep out any fossorial predators. The henhouse, adjacent run, and roof over both will go on top of this foundation.