The chickens aren’t little anymore! They are fully feathered just in time for the cool weather. Although we don’t have eggs yet these cuties are really starting to show their different personalities. One young rooster is starting to practice his amateur crowing, which sounds a bit like a cat being strangled.
We have a system of moving the chicks outside to a large open-bottomed cage during the day. Then we move them back into two small cages in the barn at night. This process takes about an hour total to complete each day. Not only do you have to transport 13 growing chickens several yards by hand, but you must also give them clean water and food in all 3 cages.
With winter looming in the not so distant future our concern for the young chickens’ place of residence is overshadowed by our need to finish the upstairs bathroom. Though Michael is working every spare minute to accomplish that goal, we have become painfully aware that this bathroom is not a one man job. My dad is trying to come soon to help with the ceiling installation.
Day Time Night Time
So far this week Michael has been able to do some more patching and last night he sealed the old chimney with a low-luster masonry sealing product. The chimney was originally something we wanted to remove, but after realizing that project was out of our league we opted to keep it. This actually was one of the few times when such a disappointment became a blessing. We have grown to love the texture and rustic charm the chimney brings to an otherwise ordinary corner of the bathroom.
So in order to devote more of our precious time and resources to the very important indoor bathroom, we are making some sacrifices. The chickens will just have to take their chances in the dilapidated coop that came with the farm. We will try to patch some of the holes in the pen and weather-proof the hen house a little.
Hopefully they will survive the harsh Kansas winter and the vicious wildlife until spring. It breaks my heart to give my “chicky girls” such a bleak first winter. As I get further along in my pregnancy I am having increasingly more trouble transporting the fluffy chicks. We have to literally climb into the cage to catch each one with the current set up. We are learning the hard lesson that when doing a serious renovation yourself, you have to be very flexible because almost nothing goes as planned.
Ok…so I let my chickens roam about the yard in the afternoon. After dinner I call “chickens!” and I walk to the coop. I put the scraps from the day inside the coop. They go back to the coop on their own. I try to do it when they naturally start to head home for the evening. They liked to be all tucked in at before it gets dark. Susan uses scratch to call hers in. They come a running! You might try bribery!
I miss you and so do my girls!
CK
We were going to let them roam free, but we have seen a hawk landing on the cage and trying to get them.
Do you have any advice about dealing with hawks?