Spring came early...

Not a great deal of excitement around the coop lately, which is good. Warm weather arrived early this year, with the crocus blooming a full three weeks ahead of last year. Although winter has returned for a brief visit (it's actually snowing as I write this), sunshine and 70 degrees is the forecast by the middle of next week. We've all been busy outdoors, cleaning up the last of the winter debris and marvelling at the new growth of spring. The girls have been loving it; out free ranging for at least a couple hours every day, gobbling up every last little green shoot they can find. Unfortunately, some of these shoots just happened to be the strawberry plants in the garden, but Peggy has since added temporary fencing to keep the chickens at bay. Speaking of fencing, Peggy has gone completely crazy and spent much of last Saturday digging postholes and setting fence posts in the rain. All that fun in preparation of putting up a 6' tall chicken and critter-resistant (I know better than to say say "critter-proof"!) fence around the raised beds. While fences are rarely asthetically pleasing, Peggy chose to use raw, round wooden posts for the fencing which helps to soften the appearance considerably and will result in the barrier blending in nicely with the wooded surroundings. We had considered building a "chicken tractor" (a portable, easy-to-move structure to protect/contain the chickens while they are free ranging), but in the end enclosing the garden just made more sense.

Our flock will be growing soon as we have decided to purchase 10 new chicks this spring. They should be arriving in about two weeks and will spend their early days in a nice protected area (in the kiddie pool in the basement perhaps?) until they are robust enough for the great outdoors. They'll have their own coop and pen until they are large enough to fend for themselves in with the adult hens, at which time they'll move in with the grown-ups. The juvenile coop and pen will be attached to the main pen, so the newcomers will be in close proximity to the hens while they are growing up. We're hoping that this will allow the two groups to become reasonably familiar with one another and will ease the integration process when the time comes. We'll see - Chickens can be kind of funny sometimes...

Matt