pics of the chicks

Hainan and Honey Soy. (My sister named them!)

I don't like the coop much, but working out something smaller and lighter in its place is going to be difficult. I definitely want a chook tractor, but the designs I've seen are very solid and therefore rather heavy. I want something that can be moved around the yard - but it's not a large yard, either!

Anyway, I'm still working out their personalities - and I think they're working out their pecking order. Honey tends to be the first into the feeder, and she hogs it something terrible when I hang it up, but Hainan seems to like prodding Honey - 'scaring' her, so Honey flaps away, or (when it comes to roosting time) climbing all over Honey until Honey gets off the perch and gets back up again. It's this big jostle-and-flutter on the perch, and somewhat amusing from a human perspective.

I'm contemplating a 'fixed coop' with a moveable dome, but then, where should the fixed coop go? The backyard is about 6m x 8m - about large enough to swing a cat - and honestly, I want most of it for garden space!

At least the biggest danger to them will be the local cats. Not ours who are kept indoors, but the free-ranging, wandering cats who are about the neighbourhood - at least two, maybe three. There are dogs in the neighbourhood but they're all walked on leashes and it's our backyard. There may be urban foxes, but the chooks are mostly in the coop all day, except for when I let them out to free-range. Not sure about rats, but if we have free-ranging cats in the neighbourhood, then they'll probably deal with the rats. (Plus, our cats may be in the house, but their scent is probably on the underside of the house which is the most likely place for rats to try to make home. At some point, I'm going to need to make some fencing/gates so the chooks can't easily get out without going up. Their wings aren't clipped, but they're not instinctive flyers.

Also, I need more fencing for seedlings! Luckily most of the summer seedlings I've got in the ground have pots around and over them. But the chooks have happily dug up the 'centre bed' which mostly housed the wintervege and coriander-gone-to-seed (coriander did AMAZINGLY in my garden this season, which resulted in my sister putting a chunk in the curry - and I do mean A CHUNK. As in, I forked up a bit of green...which turned out to be a lot of green, like an iceberg of coriander, with only the tip showing in the curry sauce...) I need to start collecting that seed, btw. So many things to do, so little time...