outdoors!

just needs a little more paint!

thanks to my sister for supplying the floor for the poop board!
we boarded up the nest boxes until they are closer to egg laying age (20 weeks).

they haven't mastered going up the ramp yet.

the stump I added is their favorite. 

Just like that, the coop is done enough and the chicks are out of my house. They spent their first night outside and they weren't eaten by predators. Success! Many many thanks to my dad for building me a super awesome coop. It just needs some more paint and some final touches, and then we need to figure out where we are going to stash it in the yard.

Coop Progress

My dad is awesome. He came up with this coop design based on a picture, and did all the measurements himself. It's almost done - just needs trim, another coat of paint, and some hardware fencing around it. I hope to move the chicks in by the end of the week! They are too rowdy for their box, and are much happier eating our creeping charlie outside.

My dad, hard at work!

chick in her nest

My other three chicks, trying out the coop.
Oliver decided it was "too sharp." 

perch!

The sliding "poop board" - hopefully this will make for easy cleaning!

Three nest boxes. They will probably all lay in just one of them,
but handy if we get more chickens!

painting in the dark

A ghost painter??

The coop is bigger than we need, because as the chickens age, we will get new chicks and there will be some overlap in coop living. This one could probably hold 5-6 or even more birds. I love it!

Ginormous Babies

I was gone for a week. One week. The chicks tripled in size. Tripled! They are huuuge. And still so sweet. It made me happy that when I went to pick them up, they followed me around the neighbor's yard. Awww, my babies missed me. There were chickens everywhere in Maine and I had fun finding a few Australorps and Silver-Laced Wyandottes there, but no Buff Orphingtons that I saw. Many many thanks to my kind neighbor who took care of my chickies for the week.

Me and Bowtie

Love my chickens

human perch?

Tinny's not a cuddler

FLUFF!

My baby Bowtie

Tinny and Fluff wandering about

Fluff just wants to snuggle

Bowtie's big tail feathers

bug hunt?

wandering the yard

By the way

I changed this blog's settings to public, so now hopefully people will have less problems getting onto it, and now you can subscribe to it if you'd like. It's still hidden from Google and the likes, but easier to access.

Peeps in their crib

What do you do with the sides from a recalled crib? Make a little portable home for the chicks, of course! Once they outgrow it, we'll use it as a compost bin. Yesterday, fifteen children surrounded and played with the chicks for hours. These are going to be the tamest chickens in the world. They are getting bigger, growing some feathers, losing some fluff, hunting bugs when they are outside, and are so funny to watch. Bowtie continues to be my sweetest chick, Fluff is the leader but always welcomes a cozy hand to lay in, and Tinny wanders curiously around, checking out everyone and everything.

chicken crib

cleaning feathers together

outdoor nap time?

hanging with their papa hen (rooster?)

Tinny ready to take flight

nesting on my hand

Fluff's huge feet

Feathers and Outside Playtime

I let the chicks play outside for about an hour today in a little fenced in area I set up for them. They were so funny - such fierce bug predators! I can see how they are related to the T-Rex.

They are getting their feathers in and apparently will go through a prolonged ugly-adolescent phase (junior high chickens). Fluff especially has big tail feathers already. They love to stretch their wings and "fly" around. It's a good thing we have a cover over their brooder.