Chicklet Update

We've had the chickens a little over a week now.  Progress has been made on the name front for half of them.  The Frizzle is now Phyllis, and the Cochin is now Babette.  We're still struggling over what to name The Twins.  They are all developing their own distinct habits, but really only Babette and Phyllis are showing any signs of personality and behavioral distinction.  The Twins are more skittish (actually, everyone is skittish around me unless I have soybeans or bulgur wheat)  Jay is a much better chicken whisperer than I am, and is more willing to chase them down and force interaction than I am.  Whenever I go out there, The Twins are convinced it's bed time and troop up the ladder into the hen house.  Babette comes waddling over to see if I've brought a treat, and Phyllis starts to follow The Twins up the ladder, but stops half way to see if Babette is onto something.

 

As far as coop improvements go, we've made some adjustments and enhancements.  We noticed the girls are panting a bit (and it's only April!!!) The coop is very shady until the late afternoon, when that western sun hits it and the reflective roof isn't much help. We found an outdoor roll-up shade and attached it so I can go out in the afternoons and unroll it to give them more refuge from the sun.

I also bought a small shallow storage bin.  I am deciding between making it a chicken pool or a sand box.  Both water and sand have cooling properties.  Jay added roosts to the hen house.  They don't get used at night unless Jay picks them up (which they hate) and puts them up on them, but I see Phyllis and the Twins on them a lot during the day.

I got a new chair to sit on in there, and added a small roost across the top of a bushel basket so they could practice.  Here, one of The Twins is practicing. She fell off immediately after I took the shot, but now that I have it full of paving stones, at least it doesn't topple over when they fall off.  I'm hoping that, since they obviously understand the concept of roosting, they will eventually decide it's a neat way to sleep at night and we won't have to traumatize them every night by moving them up on top of their snazzy roosts in the dark.  Normally they snuggle up under the roost bar - except Babette.  She finds a roost in the coop to sit on and has to be moved the whole way into the house at night.

I haven't had as much time to spend with them as I had hoped, but I go out every night for a little while when it's cool and hang out in my chair with them.  I really enjoy just watching them peck around and peep at each other.  Sometimes when I'm at the kitchen window I look out and see them chasing each other around or just flying for no apparent reason across the coop.  I see some occasional chicken chest-bumping, but nothing ever really mean going on.