Moving, Moving, Moving....

Well today was finally the day that the chickens moved outside. I know, I know we picked the coolest day/night in a few weeks. Paul (who is a wonderful husband) worked on the chicken tractor yesterday and finished it up today. It is really neat and we will be able to take it apart when we are done for easy storage (Paul is always thinking!). I am going to post lots of photos so you can see the chicken.

So after the chicken tractor was built we had to get the chickens from the brooder into the tractor, hm......Paul thought it would be easier and safer (we wouldn't drop the chickens) if we moved the brooder out by the tractor and had a shorter distance to move them by hand.  Paul and mom (who was up helping can 14 quarts of green beans) moved the brooder out (I am still not allowed to lift more than 10 pounds). 


Here is the empty chicken tractor and you can see Paul getting ready to move the first chicken in.  You can see that the chickens have a lot of room to move around and hunt for bugs as well as get into the covered shelter. 



Here are the first few chickens in the tractor. 

You can't see it in the photos but after the chickens were moved they were picking up their feet and walking funny, like little kids do when they walk on a new surface for the first time. They kept looking at the grass, almost as if thinking "what the heck is this?"


It didn't take them long to find their new feeder and the food. These chickens really like to eat!

Here is a close up of one of the chickens. They are still looking a little scary, but not as bad as last week. 


Here they are behind the chicken wire. 


Here is a photo of a couple of chickens. They are letting me know how unhappy they were about being manhandled. You may have noticed that they still don't have all their feathers. Since tonight is chilly (in the 50's) Paul took out the heat lamp from the brooder and hooked it up. I'll admit I am more relieved, not just because I know they won't be cold, but also because I can look out the windows and see the chickens. Paul did show me how to clean my 22 long rifle so we are ready to shoot any critters (raccoon, skunk, weasel, etc.) that may show up. I'll post a blog later this week about my gun. 


Of coarse the dogs (Killer, Addie, and Bear) were very interested to see what had been in the garage.  They barked and whined awhile but weren't as bad as I thought they may be.  They were very distracted tonight and kept wanting to go out. I think they were a little jealous because they think we love the chickens, I tried to explain that the chickens were food, but how do you explain that to dogs?