Move-in Day at Last!

Quite a lot of progress was made on the new Chicken House (I need to come up with an official name for it) on Saturday, but then we were plagued again by a very rainy Sunday. Good thing for the quickly-growing chickens that Matt had Monday off from work and the sun came back out.

By evening, it was finished... at least mostly... the chicken wire has not gone up yet, to enclose the play yard, but at least the house was ready and those teenaged birds could be moved from their cramped brooding box.

There was a lot of love and attention to detail put in on their behalf, so before showing you the move in, hows about a little mini-tour?

It has a large picture window looking out the back and is sided with reclaimed wood. The chicken door has its very own grand stairway which can be raised and lowered if necessary. The rails and poles came from small cedar trees harvested from our woods...

There are three nesting boxes along one side wall, each with its own hinged door for egg-gathering ease...

The large front door is vented at the top for fresh air flow on hot Summer days, and allows easy access for cleaning...

Mr. Tractor-Operator says that it pulls easily, that "the tractor didn't even know it was there". This is a very good thing, in my opinion. After SO many hours of labor involved in its construction, it would have been really lame to discover that it was too heavy or that it put gouges in the earth as it was being pulled along.

Finally, time to see how the girls like their new luxury suite, they were loaded into a box and carried by yours truly to their new home site (undignified, I know, but they are too unruly to try to herd all the way from the barn, and likely to run off and be eaten- at least I used a cool box- its the one my reel mower came in).

Just after this photo was taken, a silly Jack exclaimed, "Mama! I see an eyeball!"

And here they are at last, exploring their new digs, fresh shavings in place. They were a bit freaked out at first, but soon were pecking at the walls and scratching at the floor.

Here's to a long predator-free life full of fresh greens and grubs, my Girls.