The wind beneath their wings

I felt bad that we've been slow to get the chicken run installed so that the ladies could have access to the great outdoors. I made a temporary chicken tractor last weekend, but within five minutes I knew I'd never do it again. At least not that way. I had pounded in four stakes in the lawn and encircled them with chicken wire. Actually, at first I was a bit lazy and thought the chicks would be big enough to be contained by a wire cage that we had left over from a pallet of stone pavers. They were too big, but they sure did try hard and got thisclose to escaping. So I used chicken wire, which is, imagine that, great for keeping in chickens.

One by one, I caught them inside the coop and carried them to this pen. They clucked nervously, especially that first one. Her instincts must have told her this was the end. By the time I had captured and moved 12 hens, I was exhausted and sat there with them to enjoy this moment as they enjoyed their first introduction to grass and sunlight. In the background is their brooder propped up against their new old home.

Slightly better than "Why did the chicken cross the road?"

Why does a chicken coop have only two doors? Because if it had four, it would be a chicken sedan!

Lucky for us, our property came fully equipped with a base model chicken coop. Its structural safety is slightly questionable at 80+/- years old, but it will suffice until we get the ladies some more permanent digs. We had to clean it out, wash down the walls with bleach, replace some missing window panes, install lights and outlets, and mend some giant holes in the floorboards where animals had broken through.

That was about a month ago already. You can tell by how clean and fluffy the bedding is compared to now.

We penned the ladies in a third of the available space to keep them cozy and buy us time while we finished organizing and wiring the coop (which is still left to be done...). They looked highly confounded about their more open surroundings for the first 10 minutes then immediately starting sparring for pecking order. Give them an inch, they'll trample all over each other...