In the Pen

The chickens now have a pen, albeit fairly small. They have this space in front of their house, and the side between their house and the garage. After we get the ugly fiberglass fence replaced (behind the chicken house) they will have a bigger pen.








At first, they were kind of "chicken" to use their ladder.







Note the chicken on the ground giving encouragement to the one on the ladder.











Here's our house after a new coat of paint. The irrigation water is now in the ditch, and I am getting after the lawn to try and make it look like someone lives here.

The Girls

So here's the girls. They are now six weeks old. They are not clucking yet, and they sound funny still peeping. The biggest one thinks she is really something and goes up to the others with her head up and feathers out, and says "I'm bad!" At least that's what I think she says.





Yep, they look like pullets now. Not chicks any more.












And here's their house with the paint on. My next goal is to build a pen in front of it. The house gets pretty hot when the sun is out, so they need a pen soon.

CHP Declared Complete

No foolin. We are having our house painted next week (weather permitting), and the painter will paint the chicken house too. So I can declare my project complete. I will probably add a fenced run later, when we replace the fence behind the chicken house.

I sure am glad I didn't take up house construction to try and earn a living. I would have starved long ago. But I had a lot of fun with my chicken house project, and now I guess I'll have to do some of those other chores that I've been ignoring. The irrigation water will be turned into the ditch Monday, so it's time to get things ready for irrigating. I also have a lot of down branches in the yard (from the darn globe willows) that need picking up. And the fruit trees still need pruning. EB took a class on pruning, but so far it's all been academic.

Here's the inside of the chicken house. The feeder is hanging by the door for now, but it may get moved to the center since it's kind of crowded by the door. To the right is the waterer, and the nest boxes are on the left. The board in the bottom left corner is the roost.








Here's a shot of the roost and a baby roost for the chicks. I will remove it once they can fly up to the main roost.

The chicks are growing fast. If the weather will warm up some, we will put them out in the chicken house in a few days.




Now I guess I will have to clean up my construction mess.