Chickens are doing fine. Today I let them out and they wandered all over the yard. At one point I saw they had gone back in the pen, but Big Bird didn’t fit through the gate so easily as the smaller chickens and he was trying to figure out how to follow them. I walked out there, and he came running right up to me! So I took his picture, then went and opened the gate for him. He seemed to appreciate it.

Since they were all together I threw out some scratch for them.

This is the other rooster, he’s the brother of the hens.

I watch the ads on CL and see city chicken keepers desperately trying to give away their chickens who turned out to be roosters, and are now crowing and annoying all the neighbors. Yesterday I spotted an ad for this beautiful Buff Orpington rooster. I emailed with the guy and arranged for my hubby to pick him up after rehearsal. So about 11PM he came home with a dog crate full of rooster!

While in the dog crate we just heard quiet little ‘bok’ noises, but once let loose in the pen, he set right up to crowing and letting the whole neighborhood know he was there! It was great! I’m so happy to have a rooster, it feels like a real farm now. He’s not too loud, in fact I can barely hear him in the house, I doubt it’s loud enough to bother any of our neighbors, which are all far away.

I think he’s just the most beautiful chicken I’ve seen – just what a chicken should look like. Not that I don’t love ‘the girls’ too, with their interesting variety of colors. They all make one nice chicken family, and I enjoy sitting outside and watching them. Now if they’d just give me some eggs I’d really be happy!

Our chickens are wanderers. They hopped right over the four foot wire fence around their pen and explored the orchard, the backyard, the back field, the neighbors yard, the pasture. Somehow they kept finding their way back to the coop at night. They were chased by cats and dogs, but nothing bad happened. I had to be careful not to let the dogs out without checking to make sure it was clear of chickens. A few days ago Chester got lucky and cornered a chicken and grabbed it’s wing and pulled out a bunch of feathers before we got it away from him. The chickens scattered and I thought for sure they were gone, but eventually they all came back.

So today we ended that nonsense by putting netting over the pen, stretching from the fence to the tree. It goes all the way around like a big circus tent. I guess we’ll see if it’s tight enough, there’s a hole around the tree, but I don’t think they’ll go for it. I guess we’ll find out.

So today they were trapped in the pen, and they don’t seem too put out. I caught them sunning themselves this afternoon.

One of Martha’s hens showed up with chicks back in February, so Martha generously gave us five of the young chickens to get our coop started. Unfortunately, within ten minutes of bringing them home we were down to four! The only one she was pretty sure was a hen, a nice little yellow chicken, scrambled out of the pen and out the door, across the yard with dogs chasing her, and through the fence into the neighbors field, where she was last seen running for the horizon at full speed.

That was Monday.

Here it is Sunday and the other four have been ‘cooped’ up while I talked to them and fed them goodies. They were starting to relax, so we built them a smaller pen within the orchard so they won’t wander too far, and today was their first day outside.

We spent all day Sunday turning one end of our garden shed into a chicken coop. I have wanted chickens for years, and we just finally got around to it. Plus it took a long time to wear Dave down to the idea. He even came out and helped build it.

I set cleared away the stuff from one wall of the shed, and set up the coops end walls and supports. Then we cut a hole for a window and another for a door. The coop opens out into the orchard.

Here is the completed coop. It is four foot high in the front, and six foot long.

There are two nest boxes on one end, and a roost on the other end. The bottom has two rabbit cage trays for easy cleaning. The lower front opens up so I can slide the trays out into the shed for cleaning.