Never give up. Never surrender! (even if building a chicken coop takes more time than you ever dreamed it could)

Hubby hard at work. Notice the happy look on his face.

TA-DAH! Finished!

I'm sorry that I've not posted in a month; the time has been eaten up by poultry-housing responsibilities. In the past month, hubby and I have spent over 100 hours combined on the chicken coop. I swear, it felt like 'cooping' was all we ever did. I despised the coop by the time we were done. Thankfully?, Hubby’s stoic sense of suck-it-up and willingness to endure, if not cause, his suffering came in handy in getting this project done. In fact, dear Hubby took ten or so vacation days in June and spent at least half of them working on the coop. What a trooper.

Here's a recap of the last month:
1- the chickens got bigger and were booted from the baby's room onto the three-season back porch.
2- the chickens got to go outside in a small dog kennel and poke around in the grass.
3-our dog loves the chickens; our cats want to eat/maim/kill them.
3-Hubby finished the coop last weekend (yay!) but the fence is not yet done (boo!).
4-we have decided that we are never ever building animal housing again. Ever. Never. No way.
5- the chickens poop a lot. I mean, a LOT.

So indeed, the chickens got bigger; they turn seven weeks old next Monday. Currently, Dixie is in the lead. She's about the size of a small cantaloupe. Sydney and Tallulah are more large-mango size. (I receive emails about "your pregnancy this week"; each week, it uses some food to describe the baby's size. Grape tomato early on, avocado by week 17, last week she was a cabbage and this week she's a cauliflower. I can't wait until she's a half-gallon of chocolate ice cream...yummy baby.) They are all feathered out now; the ugly teenager stage was worst for Dixie. Cute, fluffy yellow down and more severe-looking, pointy tan-buff colored feathers don't mix well. If she was a person, looking at her you would have thought the poor, disheveled thing needed some help from social services. Tallulah and Sydney were a bit more graceful in their feathering out. Once everyone had her feathers, I decided that the stinky things could survive on the back porch. I moved them out of the baby's room two or three weeks ago. Since it was consistently in the 60s at night, I also took away their lightbulb. They seemed to be fine with that; they slept in a chick-pile to snuggle and stay warm. Usually, you'd only see two of them unless you startled the box; then the third one's head would pop up from underneath the other two.

Moving to the back porch also meant getting yard privileges. Like hardening off plants, I figured the chicks should be introduced to the outdoors before they permanently moved outside. For the past few weeks, while Hubby and I were outside 'cooping', I'd bring the girls out and lock them in a dog kennel that our dog outgrew (the humane society adoption staff swore up and down that there was "no way" our adorable pup would get so big as to outgrow that kennel...uh huh). Their first outing was interesting. Dixie just stood looking shell-shocked and didn't peck around at all. The other two peeped happily and ate a variety of grass, creeping Charlie and the occasional dried leaf. The dog also met the chickens that day and was quite exuberant in her greeting. Tail wagging, running circles around the kennel, the occasional 'woof', and then finally, plopping down next to the kennel--exhausted and panting--and licking any chicken derrière that got too close to the bars. That pretty much still describes the dog and chickens relationship, with the addition of the chicks pecking at her tongue when she does a Gene Simmons and extends her tongue as far into the kennel as she can. I really glad that Bean (the dog) likes the chickens. It's surprising that a bird-hunting breed would be so gregarious with feathered creatures but I'm not complaining. The cats are a different story. They are indoor cats and have only met the chicks once. Briefly. Their relationship is more like Syria-Lebanon. Crazy, (power) hungry cats stalking and threatening a relatively stable chicken state that makes good hummus and pita bread, or eggs in this case.

Beanie loves her chickens!

Speaking of predators, last week a skunk dug under our neighbors coop and killed one of her chickens. Poor Penny. Our neighbor heard a ruckus about 3 a.m. and got outside in time to save her other chicken and scare the skunk off. So predator deterrence is what we are currently trying to figure out with the fence. I'm not worried about the coop since it's up almost a foot off the ground; however, the fence is another story. I didn't bury wire when I put it in and am trying to decide if a 2-3" deep and 4-6" wide layer of landscape rock around the fence perimeter would be sufficient. Our house's previous owner loved her ferns and plunked them in a oh-so-natural-and-visually-stunning garden of landscape rock; I've been digging it up by the wheelbarrow-full but can't find a sucker to take it off our hands so I may as well find a use for it.

Once we felt the coop was secure, we moved the girls in. It was time. Sunday morning Rich went out to the porch to discover a mass breakout had occurred since I had left a few hours earlier. The cardboard box walls had been breached. It was chicken pandemonium. I was not home so Hubby was left with the task of recapturing the girls. I really wish I had been home because Hubby's exasperated description of trying to catch the little buggers made for a good visual image; I'm sure the live performance was that much better. Hubby was successful after 10 or so minutes and many failed attempts, and all was well by the time I returned home... with exception of the clean-up. Hubby generously left me the task of cleaning the many, many, many piles of chicken poop off the back porch carpet. The girls couldn't have been free for more than two hours but had pooped like they'd taken Metamucil after a month of constipation. Good grief.

So. That's been the last month. You are up to date in the lives of Tallulah, Dixie and Sydney. And since it is dark outside and they have, no doubt, fallen asleep, so should I. Happy evening, all! I promise the next update is less than a month away.

No, I'm not answering the chicken-phone or listening for the ocean. I'm triumphantly holding up Tallulah before flinging her into her new coop.