Chicken Run

The chicks are 6 weeks old now and fully feathered except for their necks. This morning I told Jim that the girls wanted to know when they would be getting their hen door so they could use their new run. That was it, Jim was at it right away! He made a nice door that I can open from the inside by pulling a rope that attaches to a nail on the ceiling. That way I don't have to go into the run to open the door. Nice huh?

The run is shaded by pine trees and it measures 20 feet by 23.5 feet, lots of room for a small flock.

The chooks were nervous about venturing outside at first. Little Esther, the small but adventurous Buff Orp, looked left, then right, then proceeded to march down the ramp. Rudy, their rooster, followed suit and soon they came out one by one. Not all the chicks came out, but most of them did. The slow pokes came out later in the afternoon.

While they were all outside I closed the hen door and cleaned the coop thoroughly. I removed all the old bedding and used it to mulch our 11 blueberry and 9 raspberry bushes. I dusted the flat surfaces inside and removed the spiderwebs. After adding a new bag of pine shavings, the coop looked brand new!