Time to get the fully feathered chicks – all of 6 weeks old – out of the brooder in the kids’ bedroom. To my amazement the new coop, which weighs the same as a gas giant, does actually fit under the chook dome.  After Donna’s departure, I’m a bit worried about plunging the peepers straight into the fowl-and-brush-turkey-ordure-rich environment of the run, so we’ll give them a few weeks in the chicken tractor, getting a garden bed ready for brassicas. They had a first scratch around this afternoon, ready for the big move tomorrow.
Andy is looking very miffed by these developments. I caught her lurking in the new coop – I think she envisages it as her own personal quarters. She was transfixed by the sudden appearance of the new girls, so I was able to grab her and turf her out before any argy-bargy. However, Snowball and Andy have been using the top of the dome as a perch, so they were wandering around the run at something of a loss at sundown tonight. They have a whole series of dry places to sleep – under the granny flat, in the wood-shed – but since they seemed to favour a spot underneath the neighbour’s horrible coral tree, we leaned a ladder (a previous craft project) against the outside of the woodshed, exactly where the chicken dome used to be. I tried to give Andy the idea but she wasn’t having it. Hope they are somewhere out of the rain tonight….
