Tuesday, May 16, 2006
Free at last!! (Chickens, and only relative freedom)
Finally! Fresh air for my hens. I've been feeling really guilty about not finishing the outdoor enclosure and keeping them 'cooped up' (can't resist the pun), but finally last night I fnished all but the gate, which I will rig up enough at noon to allow the girls out. I can't wait for lunchtime! The thing is a bizarro construction of plastic chicken-fencing and bird/deer netting, tied together with string and staples (at least no baling wire or chewing gum:)
Many thanks to my friend Dahlia who worked through hail and rain on Sunday to do the major portion of the work. I'd hoped to release the girls last night, but they were roosting comfortably long before I was done, and even the staplegun didn't keep them awake. It's always amused me how easily chickens drift off whne it gets to be evening, and how soundly they sleep.
Oh, and Pete got to meet the hens this morning, inadvertantly. I left the (rigged and unwieldly) door cracked as I was putting their food out this morning, and Pete was looking in, and suddenly he was in the henhouse - which I knew because the hens took alarm and (very cleverly) flew to their roosting spot. I don't know what Pete's intentions were, but he was certianly fascinated by them. He wouldn't stop staring. I put him out, then I judged he'd better get used to seeing them and they him if they were going to be in a pen outside much of time, so I had him come back in. I tried to explain to him that they were my hens and I didn't want him chasing them or playing with them, but I'm afraid he wasn't listening very well :-/ We'll just have to see how it goes. We once brought in a sweet domestic bunny someone had dumped near a pond on one of our walks, and Pete was utterly fascinated by it and would sit and stare at it for hours (we found the bunny a home; incidentally, our beagle at the time, Honey, ignored the bunny altogether, although she tracked wild bunnies all the time. Hunters tell me this is normal.). I can't tell if his interest in the hens is from his herding side or his predatory side, and I am disinclined to find out the hard way.
Pictures later! ¶ 10:53 AM
Many thanks to my friend Dahlia who worked through hail and rain on Sunday to do the major portion of the work. I'd hoped to release the girls last night, but they were roosting comfortably long before I was done, and even the staplegun didn't keep them awake. It's always amused me how easily chickens drift off whne it gets to be evening, and how soundly they sleep.
Oh, and Pete got to meet the hens this morning, inadvertantly. I left the (rigged and unwieldly) door cracked as I was putting their food out this morning, and Pete was looking in, and suddenly he was in the henhouse - which I knew because the hens took alarm and (very cleverly) flew to their roosting spot. I don't know what Pete's intentions were, but he was certianly fascinated by them. He wouldn't stop staring. I put him out, then I judged he'd better get used to seeing them and they him if they were going to be in a pen outside much of time, so I had him come back in. I tried to explain to him that they were my hens and I didn't want him chasing them or playing with them, but I'm afraid he wasn't listening very well :-/ We'll just have to see how it goes. We once brought in a sweet domestic bunny someone had dumped near a pond on one of our walks, and Pete was utterly fascinated by it and would sit and stare at it for hours (we found the bunny a home; incidentally, our beagle at the time, Honey, ignored the bunny altogether, although she tracked wild bunnies all the time. Hunters tell me this is normal.). I can't tell if his interest in the hens is from his herding side or his predatory side, and I am disinclined to find out the hard way.
Pictures later! ¶ 10:53 AM
