All is going well

I went out this morning before the automatic door opened, which is at seven o’clock at the moment, to make sure the new girls came out safely.

I propped the door open with the chicken door stop as I was too impatient to wait for it to open.

The new girls come out of the pop hole

While I was doing the morning clean up the new girls came back in and stayed with me until I had finished.

The new girls kept me company while I poop picked the chicken shed

Freckles finds the water

Rusty finds the water

Pebbles finds the water bottle too

Pebbles goes to the food dish

Freckles and Rusty go to the food dish

The three little girls at the food dishes together

The other girls are next to or on the table and preening

The little girls together

I stayed with them for half an hour until I was satisfied that they had found the water and the food and there was no aggravation.

When I returned everything was calm and I felt confident enough to leave them together. Rusty even tried a bit of fish and a bit of spinach. She is growing in confidence.

It was the final day of worming the girls, hence the fish. I decided not to worry about worming the new girls on this occasion as I was struggling to get them to eat anything at the beginning of the week, plus they had never been outdoors before now. I will worm again in March and will include the new girls then.

On the day after the first day of worming I found one poop with worms in but nothing at all after that. This is a good sign because it shows that the flubenvet is working, the worming process is necessary, but that there isn’t an overload of worms.

This afternoon I added three bags of soil to the run as the level keeps dropping with me constantly poop picking and I felt that it was a big drop from the patio area for the little girls.

The girls start spreading the soil in the run

Speckles is doing her best to spread the soil

The new girls check out the soil

Pebbles likes this perch to snooze on in the afternoons

At bedtime I had hoped I could direct the new girls into the chicken shed. It didn’t quite go according to plan. Once all the other girls were in I tried directing them towards the shed but they didn’t want to go. Several times I picked them up and put them in the shed. Each time they popped right back out again.

By now they were getting distressed, twittering away and Freckles was again looking as if she wanted to fly into the roof.

I decided to put them in the shed and close the pop hole door. This is going to take a little longer. I checked back a little later and they were settled in the corner near Pebbles.

They finally settle

It looks as if Pebbles is looking down at them and wondering what they are doing down there and Rusty also looks as if she is wondering how Pebbles got up there.

I am happy with this arrangement though. Last night I wasn’t so happy about them being by the pop hole as they were in the direct route of the other girls leaving the shed in the morning which was one of the reasons I wanted to be out there before they came out. They are in a much safer position here.

I hope they will soon get the hang of going in by themselves but until then I will just have to help them along.