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.