Life in the New Coop

Moving day had arrived.  The coop had been inspected by a few chickens but when it was time to actually get in the coop for the night, it just wasn’t happening.  By 10 p.m., we were sure the chickens weren’t going in on their own.  We tried leading them in with the flashlight.  Sometimes they’ll follow a light.  They followed right up to the door of the coop and then they “flew the coop”!  They wanted nothing to do with it.  Vince decided he’d run to Wal-Mart and get battery powered lanterns and put inside.  Maybe the chickens would be attracted to the light and feel more comfortable.  The solar panels aren’t hooked up yet so something battery powered was all we could use.

In the meantime, I had tried everything I could think of.  I had caught a few of them and put them in the coop through the door, with the hatch door down so they couldn’t get back out.  They were all scared to death and I hated doing that to them.  Chad came out and decided he’d crawl into the run, catch them one by one, hand them to me and I could put them in the coop.   That was fine til we got down to the last chicken.  You know which one it was . . Smokey!  I’m scared of that chicken so Chad had to catch her, and then he had to get himself and the chicken out of the run and put Smokey in the coop.

By the time Vince got home with his battery powered LED lanterns, Chad and I had all the chickens in the coop and we were hot, sweaty and tired!    See that little lantern in the window?  We leave it on for them every night.

Monday morning I was leaving to go out of town and I knew I’d wake up and find they’d all had heart attacks after all that excitement.  I’m happy to report that they were all alive and well, and didn’t seem upset or frustrated at all.  I walked out to the coop to check for eggs several times before leaving and each time, the 6 gold stars strutted right into the coop, hopped up into the nesting boxes so they were eye ball to eye ball with me when I opened the egg door.  In fact, Tuesday night one of them came sailing out of the nesting box, right onto the ground, while Vince had the egg door open.  The gold stars just can’t get close enough to us but they are easy to catch . . they just want to be held.

I was out of town Monday night but Vince said the chickens were in the coop . . calm, cool and collected . . before 8:30.  This is how I found them Tuesday night.

They’re now perfectly happy in their new home.  I’m thrilled that they’re in their new home and I’m sure Vince is more than thrilled to be done with this project.

Just look at that face!  Don’t  you think she’s thrilled with her new home?

By the way, 2 more eggs were laid Tuesday, for a total of 6 eggs now.  I believe I have two hens laying.  For those who told me that their combs get redder when they start laying . . I do have two with really red combs.