poultry pandemonium

-My mood: nervous.
-My shoes: covered in chicken shit.
-6 week old pullets: ecstatic.
-Red Stars: rebellious.
-Oliver: hungry for chicken poo and eager to get pecked in the face.
-Little Jerry, Goldilocks, and White Girl remain unperturbed; they own this place.

Today I put the smallest pullets (about 6 weeks old) into the mid-way coop where the Red Stars were before. They were totally freaking out in the brooder since their field trip to the garden and are almost the same age as the others were when we first put them outside full-time. If it's too cold at night, since there are more of them, they should be able to cuddle for warmth. Didn't chickens evolve in the dinosaur ages? They should be able to handle a little fog and wind. The Red Stars have recently been sleeping outside their little area perched on ladders and fences. This alarmed me at first, because of predators, but there was little I could do to persuade them to get inside their safe enclosure. I guess we will just have to cross our fingers that either a) the original three ladies acquiesce and allow the Red Stars to share their shelter or b) that no mean animals snatch them in the middle of the night before this weekend, when we might actually have the time to finish securing the chicken area. As much as I think all these chickens attract predators, especially since we live right next to a KFC and they are just marinating in fried chicken smell, I am hoping that the crazy cacophony the 24 of them create will actually scare potential chicken eaters away.

The only other thing lingering above my head, much like a lightning-bolt infested rain cloud, is the fact that we are going to have to clip the wings of 20 birds, many of which I cannot even tell apart. Even though the whole yard is theirs for roaming, the Red Stars are acting territorial about their old space. I am just waiting for them to fly over and bully the little ones. They are flying all over the place, including over the fence into my garden. I admit I have been lax about harvesting, but that is no reason to throw it all to the birds. I guess I will be doing some research about clipping wings this week in preparation for my next day off, and the hardest undertaking yet.

[photos to come once jake gets home from portland with our digi camera]