The chickens continue to grow and are now 8 weeks old. We mowed and threw in some grass clippings into the coop. We are contemplating doing the deep litter method for the chicken coop. It’s a way to keep smells down, cleaning easier and you end up with compost in the end. You basically throw grass clippings, leaves, pine needles down and the chickens live on it. This has to be at least 4-6 inches deep. When you go to clean the coop out you have fresh compost underneath. Our chickens scratched and searched for bugs for hours. We will see how this method goes.

Today we worked on tilling the land for a garden. We must have made a lot of noise because the chickens were huddled in a corner. The automatic door was up but no one would come out, so I opened the main door and out they came. We will have to keep working on making them go out the automatic door.

 

I have been reading up on feeding the chickens snacks, and today was a perfect day to give it a try. I took a handful of grapes out to the coop with me. They enjoyed the grapes and fought over them a little bit. This week is supposed to be beautiful so we will have them outside a lot.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This morning we had a big visitor in our yard. A turkey vulture was sunning himself, and probably smelled the dead raccoon in the hollow tree below him………I just had to share the pictures.

 

Onto the chickens: with the weather being over 60 degrees this week we decided to get the automatic door installed. Brock worked on installing it (we’ll post about that process later) and I painted it. While I was painting we opened the big door and let them explore the outside. They were very hesitant at first but eventually pecked around at the ground.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We took down the partition and gave them the whole coop now, minus the nesting boxes. We walled off the nesting box areas so they don’t start sleeping/pooping in them. We caught one laying down sleeping on the 2×4 roosting post so that’s promising. Hopefully she’ll teach the rest. As it warms up and they feather out more we’ll take away the heating lamp. And when they’re bigger we’ll start training them on the automatic coop door and unsupervised grazing in the run outside.

They’re starting to really stretch their wings and fly up and down to the roosting posts.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We went to check on the chickens this afternoon and we found a Barred Rock on the top roosting bar. She then flew to the top of the board that is separating the smaller area from the coop. We just watched her for awhile try to figure out how to get back down. Finally she flew back down to each bar and to the ground.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The chickens are definitely getting bigger and braver. They have figured out the hen hydrator and are eating up a storm. Hopefully the weather will be more spring like so we can open the door and have them explore outside.