These are the littles. Today was a nice day, so this afternoon, I did a few more minor adjustments to their pen and opened the pop door, got down so they could see me through it and started talking to them like I do when I have feed in my hand. I didn’t want to force any of them out, but wanted to see what would happen. Later, when several did leave the coop, I went over and sat on the ground with feed in my hand in their pen. More came out and a few seemed to get that the ramp was a way out and a way back in.
At dusk when I was headed over to lock up the hens in the Palace, I realized that several of the chicks had found an escape from the pen. The ones outside the fence seemed more than willing for me to pick them up and place them in the coop, but there were 6 outside the coop in the pen that didn’t seem to get the ramp message from the others. I tried luring them with treats in hand and caught two more that way, but the other 4 are the ones who have been too wary to eat from my hand, and kept their distance. I called into the house for hubby assistance and with him manning the pop door, I cornered the last few and got them back in the coop.
A head count showed one missing and it was getting dark. Hubby finally spotted her very quietly crouched in a bare ground spot and she is a brown Easter Egger and blended right in. He encouraged her out of the fencing pile with a pole and I managed quick hands to catch her. Now that the tractor is home, I should relocate that fencing to the barn.
I see where some of them may have escaped. There is a spot where the fence is a couple inches from the ground. I will put a few grapefruit sizes rocks along that area tomorrow. There is another area under the coop where one of the cinder blocks that line the two edges away from the run is tipped, maybe from the hens digging under there in spite of the rocks I put there to prevent such activity. That will have to be remedied as well.
I expect it will take a couple of days before they all get the idea to go back in to the coop at dusk and even longer until I am comfortable letting them out in the grass with no cover over them. They are getting bigger, but they are still much too small to fend for themselves in the yard.
Oh the joys of young animals, it is a good thing they are cute and will be productive by mid summer. The big girls provided 7 eggs today, that is the most I have gotten in quite a while.