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Chickens in the veggie garden

Now that we’re done with the veggies for the year, it’s time to let the chickens in to clean up the beds. In no time at all they’ll eat all the leftover vegetation, and till the beds.

Here’s a YouTube video:

I cut a hole in the fence from the new run:

Enabling the new chickens to enter the veggie garden:

And re-opened the hole from the old run, for the old girls:

The new chickens didn’t take long to start investigating the garden beds:

For the most part, the two flocks are staying on opposite sides of the garden, though there have been some interactions:

Chicken run: now open!

This morning I finished the new chicken run fencing, and installed the automatic pop door opener (with a little help from Domino), enabling the chickens to access the run:

The opener is mounted to a small door, so it can be accessed from inside the coop:

Here’s the pop door open for the first time, much to the chickies surprise:

Outside the coop, the opener is behind a window, so the light sensor can work:

Here’s inside:

And a close-up:

Chickies peeking out of the pop door:

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Unsurprisingly, our bravest new chicken, imaginatively named Merida after the Pixar movie character, was the first to leave the coop to the newly fenced chicken run (YouTube video):

Followed by Domino:

And a few others:

But some weren’t yet brave enough:

Good thing it was a bit cloudy this morning; once the sun came out, they were all much more reluctant to leave the coop.

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Chicks released from the crate

The chicks are still upstairs, though will be moving into their new coop in a few days. Each morning I let them out of their crate for half an hour or so, while I spend time with them and change their food & water. There’s always an explosion of activity when I open the door.

 

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A chick steals a Q-tip

We have some Q-tips for cleaning chick pasty butts, and a couple of chicks discovered them during my interaction time (when the crate is open), and stole some, and proceeded to run around squawking about their find. Great good fun!