Flicka and Zen and their two new babies Elizabeth and Marie spent the 3 weeks since hatch in the dog kennel/A-frame broody suite. It looked like a lot of room and technically it was, but within a few days the mommies had torn up all the sod looking for goodies and the run was reduced to a dust/mud pit depending on the weather. I put in a half pallet just to give them something to stand on besides the mire. The chicks, especially Elizabeth are still pretty small and I would have liked to leave them in the run for another week until they got big enough to not be tempted to run through the openings in the electronetting, but last weekend I had the opportunity to stay home all day to monitor things (a rarity) and the weather was nice so I sprung them.
They didn’t rush the gate like Clucky and her brood did. The moms are protective and the babies are shy of me because I haven’t spent any time with them. (Since the end of last month I’ve been dealing with a fairly virulent allergy to something in the dirt in the chicken run, presumably mold. The allergist says it won’t kill me but that it could get worse with repeated exposure, so I’ve been limiting my time with the chickens, waiting for a hard freeze). So anyway, I went back inside and left them to sort it out. A while later I glanced out the window and saw that the hens had gotten out, but the chicks were still inside. I went out to wrangle, caught Elizabeth and released her, but couldn’t get my hands on Marie. I finally trapped her in the A-frame and opened up the nestboxes in back so she could get out.
Once out, they enjoyed their day. The other chickens left them alone and they scratched around and sunbathed. When I brought the scratch out in the afternoon both mommies joined the rest of the stampede leaving the babies screaming out of sight back behind the coop. Flicka came to right away and went charging back to them, but Zen finished her snack first. Some mothers are better than others!
My plan was to have them move back to the main coop so I can clean up the A-frame and re-seed the kennel run. I put their food and water out for the day and at dusk came out to wrangle them in. It turned out that I didn’t have to--Marie went in through the compound with Flicka and Elizabeth managed the series of leaps up the steps through the main door long after Zen went in. So now I have 13 chickens all in one coop. We may have to make some more roosts, but they should all fit.
