It was a long day, but Ken and I finished building and installing the two gates today. So the fence is officially done. We let the chickens celebrate this event by letting them out of the chicken coop to scratch inside their vast new garden fence for the first time.
Ken opens the door to let the chickens out. By the way, I believe we are seeing the pecking order here, left to right. The red chicken is No. 1 in the pecking order, so she is first up to the door.
All this new ground to scratch!
That’s great!! Congratulations on all your hard work both of you have done!! Maybe now you can take a few days off and watch the grass grow..LOLS Is that the first time the chickens have been outside the coop? Will you leave them out during the night or do you have to round them all up and get them back into the coop? I’m guessing the chickens do not fly very high so that they might escape… I’m a bit of a city girl, so don’t laugh…. I wonder if by having more exercise it will affect the production of eggs?
Yep … that’s the first time the chickens have been outside the coop. Right now I’m not planning to leave them out all the time … mostly just supervised play periods in the evenings before roosting time. Yesterday, they went back into the coop on their own. My expectation is that they’ll always return to the coop no later than dusk, to roost. I’m not too worried about them flying over the fence. A bigger worry is something like a hawk descending on one of the chickens and doing some damage…
How neat is that… I never thought about the hawks but your right… The vet warned me about the hawks here in South Florida when my mini weiner dog was a puppy and outside. My house is on hold for the moment. I have decided to purchase a larger track of land to build on. My lot now is 3 acres but the solar window is very small. I am looking for around 10 to 15 acres but I’m still building the same cottage on it. I also want to put in a large garden, chickens and the perfect location will have a running river or creek on it. The chickens grew up to be beautiful birds!!
Congratulations David. Your chickens look healthy, so obviously they are happy.
Will you be adding a chicken or two, now that the room is there?