Finally.

Capping off a 10 year dream and a 3 month construction project, we finally have chickens. And not like 2 or 3 hippy chickens either. We have eighteen hard working layers (or at least they will be when they get older). And now our flock is living in a chicken palace that took us three months to build. With the exception of Priscilla (and come on, she’s three) every member of the family cut, drilled, screwed, and painted the coop and run. It was fun at times and at others it felt like a never-ending construction death march.

Our first attempt and buying chickens was a failure; they were completely out. Paco (yes, we are on a first name basis) told us to call him the next week ... and we did. Each day for the next few days. Each day the kids continued asking "Did you call Paco yet?" or "Hey Dad, what time is it? I think it's time to call Paco." Finally on Wednesday he had birds delivered. The kids and I piled into the car to pick out our "special ones". In the end, it was only Addi and I that chose them and even that is a bit misleading. For some reason, I thought it would be more like picking out a puppy at the pet store. You watch them run and play and finally you choose the one that you bond with the best.

Not so when picking out chickens. Instead of "Oh, the one with the floppy ear is so cute, let's take him home!" it's more like "Give me 10 reds, 3 whites, and 5 blacks" and then the guy reaches into their cages, grabs them by the leg and shoves them into a cardboard box. When we got home everyone was very excited; it's like building a home theater and finally sitting down to watch your first movie as a family. That's how satisfying putting chickens into your coop for the first time. 😃

Apparently, the "chicken people" online say there's a right way to introduce chickens to your coop. Yeah, we didn't do that. I carefully took them out of their boxes and put them in. What you're supposed to do is put all the boxes in the coop, open them up, light a little incense and put on a Gordon Lightfoot record, and let the chickens come out naturally to explore their new abode. Then you keep them in their for a few days so they know where their new home is. Our plan was to keep them in the coop for most of the day, but then to let them out in the afternoon so they could eat and drink before going to bed for the night.

When the time came for us to open the coop door, I thought they'd naturally spill out and frolic in the run. With the entire family gathered around, we opened the door and waited. And waited. And waited. Nothing. I'm sure the entire scene would've made any experienced chicken owner laugh but we didn't really know what to expect. After a lot of coaxing, I managed to grab four of the most intrepid hens and put them in the yard so they could explore and eat. The other 14 stayed in the coop and hid.

It's now been 36 hours since they got home. All 18 have been outside (again, with more coaxing and grabbing) and spent the day in the sun eating, scratching and walking around. I'm not going to lie, it was very satisfying to sit and watch them. In that same time, we've also realized that a few things needed to be changed (the netting on the run is not high enough - they can fly over, especially at night when they want to roost in the trees, the ramp was too steep, and they were not able to easily get back in the coop with the chicken door opening downward). I'm sure we will discover other tweaks and modifications as we go along.