Set Them Free!

After 8 days of "acclimating" to their new coop (a.k.a. "the taj mahal"), the hens were set free... we opened the big door to invite them out into the big world of endless things to scratch. And they just stayed inside... so after 20 minutes of waiting on the girls to walk out, we finally helped one bird out and the others followed. And what fun we had watching the fun they had! They scratched and dug and rooted and pecked for over three hours this afternoon! Such funny girls to watch and observe their movements... They ventured all throughout the big garden, around the raised beds, up and down the driveway, on the edge of the woods.... you name it, they scratched it!

We do have one loner hen though... she is a social girl. Her name is "Roberta" and she comes right up to us... Probably because the much bigger birds won't mess with her right around us. She is one of the two smallest hens in the group being a Dominique (or a.k.a Dominicker hen). She and "Frances" the other Dominicker hen are beautiful black and white colored girls... Only they are the smallest so they get "pecked" on quite a bit by the bigger girls in the coop. We really enjoy hanging out with Roberta and Frances.

Here's Hubby making the changes to the roosting area in the penthouse section of the coop... Since they don't seem to like the round bars, we are converting them to flat roosting planks up high.