Thursday, June 27, 2013

The Hens Are Now Ruling the Roost

After we moved the chickens from their big brooder pen they needed to learn that their new roosting spot needs to be in the hen house. Not in trees, not on fence posts, and sure not back in the chain link pen. 
The hen house isn't really big enough for 15 birds, but we also let them out in the yard that surrounds it every day. When they outgrew that and really needed more room to roam we let them out into the pasture.
They took off with great ideas of adventure.

They spent time checking out the woods, the goat yard, and they enjoyed every minute of it. When the roosters started getting too feisty one of the Buff Orpington hens (the gold ones) took to slipping through the fence and lounging in the garden during the day. She would come back to the hen house to roost at night and then hide again the next day.

It is now two weeks later and the roosters are gone.
The yard is quiet. Several of the roosters loved to crow at anything.
The hens are far less stressed and not bothering the garden.
Yet anyway. There isn't anything ripe to eat at the moment.

This was the rooster in charge.
From the beginning he is the one I would have kept if I wanted to keep a rooster.

He is also a photo bomber.
This was one of the other interesting roosters.
The flecks on the end of his wings were interesting.

This guy was finishing a crow.

I hope he enjoyed it.


He knows there was food in there at one time.
Almost 14 weeks ago, when they were small it seemed like so much!

Now we are down to 5 hens after the 10 rowdy roosters have left. 
They should start laying in about a month.
We  will need to build some nest boxes soon. 
Then the next project will be to teach them how to lay the eggs in the boxes.
That should be fun.

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