Summer Winds

Well, it's finally felt like summer the last few days. The girls don't love the heat but we are trying to keep them comfy with the screen door at night. The yard only gets a couple hours of sun each day, keeping the area rather cool in comparison to the front yard. We've been giving them the run of the yard a couple hours each day. They love it. Every time I approach the coop they run for the door. Their food consumption has gone down considerably since they have been "free ranging". Bugs, worms, and grasses are the food of choice. They will start moving off of their chick starter and on to chick grower next week once they are a full 8 weeks old. They stay on grower until 20 weeks or the first egg, whichever comes first.

Free Bird

What started as an escape turned into a free ranging experience. They are pretty well behaved in the yard. I am concerned about them flying over the fence or squeezing through the pickets but so far so good. As they get larger they'll be too big to breach the fence and too heavy and awkward to make it over the top.

1/3 of the way there. Almost.

The girls are 6 weeks old and doing well. We are a third of the way through to laying age. Lunch has all her feathers. Dinner is nearly there and Breakfast is catching up rapidly. If they were meat birds they would be nearly 7lbs now and ready for your dinner table. I can't imagine them growing any faster than they are.

Lunch and Dinner are very friendly. They fight over who is going to sit on my head and who is going to get my shoulder. Breakfast is at the bottom of the pecking order but she is trying. The larger two are still working it out. (No, that's not an Armenian man in the picture, it's me. I'm taking the picture myself, but I couldn't take a good photo if my life depended on it).

My father built a secure screen for their door and two roosts. One for the run and the other for inside the coop. They sleep on the indoor roost at night. They probably don't need heat from the light at night anymore. We'll put a little nightlight in there for the next week or two, then they can go without until the days start getting shorter.

Our baby robins have hatched. There are at least two babies. I thought I saw a third, but I'm not sure.

We got eaten alive at the beach last night. Otherwise it was quite nice.

What hump?

I was out locking the girls up for the evening last night. It was pretty dark at 8:30. I was leaning down to fill their feeder. The next thing I know all three decided to fly up on my back and sit down. They are learning to "put themselves to bed" at night but still need me to coax them up the ramp. With them all on my back I just needed to lean towards the door and they hopped in.

Happy 233!!

It finally stopped raining. We had a nice sunny July 4th weekend. The girls were out in their run, scratching, fighting over worms and being extra cute. They had their first encounter with the lawn mower and fireworks which proved to be traumatic for them as well as Spencer. Everyone survived and we awoke to another sunny day. How long can it last.........