Green Acres Weekend Update

For the past couple weeks, the chickens have been feeling more at home here.  They've been spending more time outside, they haven't scuttled into the corner of the coop to cower whenever a human appears, and they even seem to enjoy scratching around in their little winter yard.  We'd heard that when chickens are moved, they take a bit of time to adjust; in this case, it's taken them about six weeks or so. 

Consequently, the more Byron has seen of the chickens, the more he's wanted to make friends with them.  I think they're cute, too, but I had it in mind that one day we'd probably have to butcher them.  Hmmm.  Even though they've all gotten so fat (or maybe just feathery) that we can't really tell who is who now, I honestly think we might have a hard time eating even Big Dummy for dinner.  Make no mistake, we are planning on getting meat birds and don't exactly consider these hens pets. But since they've been kind enough to take a bit of our cluelessnes in stride, we'll probably let them live their days out here. 

And in that spirit, Byron's goal this weekend was to get one of them to eat out of his hand:

Armed with wheat berries (yes, my wheat berries), Byron approaches the hens.

The chickens are too greedy not to check this out.

But first they have to make sure he hasn't dropped anything accidentally.

The hesitation continues until...

Ouch!  Byron befriends a chicken.

And to top that, let's just say nature is a funny thing.  Thus far, all the old girls have laid is a whole lot of you-know-what.  But today Byron and the kids discovered this in one of the nesting boxes:

Charlie and Akea are the proud owners of three eggs.  Congratulations, kids!

Okay, I'm excited.  It's neat to get something in return for your efforts.

In other news, I painted the bedroom the kids are sharing right now.  Our goal is that it will be Charlie's room by the end of the summer, but I hope to get it decorated long before that time.  I'll post pictures when it's a bit further along, so thanks for being patient with me!