2020 Peeps

They're getting big. We're starting to move them outside for the day whenever the weather allows, and those little feather girls are loving it! They run around like pinballs, they stretch their wings and try to fly, they eat grass and try to eat sticks and everything else they find... in short they put on quite a show (under the watchful eyes of the Chicken Friends, of course). They're right there on the boarder of being almost-too-big-to-be-inside, and we're starting to feel some pressure to get everything ready for their next phase into our flock. (We're going to make darn sure we don't repeat the mistakes of last time.)

This past weekend we moved the kid's playhouse- no longer something being used by our suddenly big Littles- in to the dog run- also something no longer being used- to make a new chicken yard. the dog run's fence is waaaay better than what's loosely wrapped around the current chicken yard, and the playhouse-turned-chicken-coop is super cute and a lot more visible from the back windows of the house, so it seems like it'll be a perfect marriage of repurposing and fortification. 

Of course we're not going to be throwing away the old coop; after the pathetic fence comes down around their run, we're planning on clearing out the brush and moving the bee hives up near the garden, repairing the doors of the coop, and making that where pullets, sick birds, and broody hens can be kept. It'll be the fortified specialty coop. 

For now, though, we're just past phase one, and while our little teen feather girls stretch their wings and soak up the sun, I'll be putting hardware cloth over the playhouse windows, building a ramp and roosting bars, and figuring out a way to keep those giant red-tailed raptors from picking off my birds once they're in their new digs.

I can't wait to have a place where they can freely roam again, y'all!