Hi,
For those who are interested I'd been talking about getting some chickens for years, well On Wednesday we got some. A few photos here:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/rufty/sets/72157635090828031/They seem to be settling in well. Although they are very young, not due to start laying for a couple of weeks yet. As always with first time pet owners it's been a very nervous first few days but it all seems fine so far.
Unfortunately a couple of problems/questions:
They don't seem to want to use the perches in the hen house at night, instead they are huddling together on the coop floor. From what i can read online this is quite common in birds this young and nothing to worry about yet. If by the time they start to lay they are still doing this then worry. Comments welcome.
Second I've been keeping then in the run - the eventual plan is to let them free range in the whole garden, but to spend the first week or so in the run so that they know that that is home. This then gives me my second concern, if I release them into the rest of the garden I don't want them to run amok and gorge themselves on grass and get impacted crops. I'm just hoping that a close cut of the grass before releasing them will be enough to protect them from themselves.
Other things:
Got an automatic door opener - brilliant idea, although the first few times it activated it seemed to worry the girls with its whirring it all seems fine now.
When leaves flutter down from the tree above they seem to scrap for it; yet when I come in with treats (corn, strawberries etc) they are really uninterested. Hopefully the mealworms I have on order will change this. I guess this hunger for leaves is a sign that they want to get out and feast on the grass. in the meantime I was going to get them a lettuce, but I believe that unless it is a home grown one then I am not allowed to feed it to them. Time to get planting some seeds...