Zach finished the new coop with compost yard under a little after 9 this morning and even though it was only in the 40's F we moved them out. They were getting very active in their 3'x4' 18" deep box and a couple had flown out when I opened the top to put in food or water. They hadn't been using their warmer--a gallon jug filled with hot water with scraps of fleece hanging down around it. I put a newly hot one into the new coop with them but they ignored it. They also ignored or more like avoided the opening giving access to the ground underneath the coop and just kept scratching around in the bedding, kicking it into their food. I tried thinking like a chicken and realized that their instinct seems to be to go up--not down. So we put a couple down the hatch and others followed, soon scratching happily in the wormy pile of compost Joanna had dumped there for them. Put another warm jug in a corner but they didn't seem to want it. Now I just hope they will find their way back up into the coop before dark or one of us is going to have to crawl into that 6'x6'x3' high compost area and put them up and into the coop.
Am attaching photos to prove we really built it and they are really outside And just want to say that they were all scattered around pecking happily until they saw me coming and ran to the other side--not to happy with being picked up and moved earlier
Am attaching photos to prove we really built it and they are really outside And just want to say that they were all scattered around pecking happily until they saw me coming and ran to the other side--not to happy with being picked up and moved earlier