first day outside!
Every day for over a week now Dan has been hard at work in the hot sun doing a big favor for me. And for the four other ladies in his life. Today we got our first chance to enjoy the fruits of his labor.
ready to explore
The chicken run isn't completely finished, but it's done enough that the chicks can go in supervised for a few hours a day and finally get to do what they were born to do! Take dirt baths, peck at real grass, and fly very short distances. And boy were they eager to get to it!
ready to get in there!
Rascal watched VERY attentively.
under careful guard
A little too attentively if you ask me.
The afternoon sunlight also gave me the opportunity to take some better pictures of our girls. Well, as better pictures as you can get holding a chick in one hand and a camera in the other. With that I give you:
Loretta
Musetta
Gretta
Caretta
That's given in order of easy-to-distinguish-ness. Caretta and Gretta are rather difficult to tell apart. Greta started out with finer features and Caretta with more yellow on her head, but they're changing every day so it's rather hard to tell mid-movement who's who. Loretta started out as the most caprecious of the bunch, she was the first to come over and peck my hand for the first week and a half. Recently the others have out-paced her in growth, though, and it was Musetta this past week who tried to fly out of the box every time I lifted the lid. She may be the most outgoing now, or it may just be that she's had the hardest time with the others pecking on her. Either way, it'll be fun to see their personalities as they grow into hens. Provided I can keep them straight.
it's going to be an exciting autumn