Picking Up Chicks

So when I brooded the latest batch of hens, I didn't put any roosts in the new brooding building. It was one of those things that was on the list, but never made it onto the shortlist. So when I put 85 pullet hens out into thier transition coop surrounded with electic poultry netting, I thought that I wasdoing pretty well and headed off to work at the plant. Carla was home all day, and checked on the birds every couple of hours. Mostly the pullets just stayed in a wad in thier coop, with a few hens venturing in and out to grab bits of grass or an unlucky grasshopper.

The coop in question is an old, dilapidated, portable hoop house that I drug up and down every ravine, clump of woods, and slope in the holler, and the coop had quite a few holes in it. So when I got home I went and checked on the hens, and at the entrance of the coop, I one hen shot up from the grass at my feet, then all of a sudden dozens of hens shot up in the moonlight like really slow fluttering quail. When they landed, they shot off in every direction, and they were so small that they darted right through the fence like it wasn't there.

Looking in the coop, ONLY 1 Stinkin' Chicken Was On The Dang Roost! Carla and I spent the next 2+ hours searching in the dark for the hens. We found just under 60 hens when it was all said and done. The next morning, there were little "feather blasts" throughout the pasture, garden, woods and grass where woodland critters had dined on chicken throughout the night. After 2 days though, another 10 hens or so have shown up.

So the girls are slowly figuring it out, and about half of them were on the roosts tonight. Which is good, because there's better ways to spend an evening than tucking in 85 chickens