The brooder, which only four weeks ago provided spacious accommodations for twenty-six chicks, now looks full.

Currently, the chicks show no signs of aggression or feather picking, but kept in such close confines that will change. They’re no longer downy fluff balls. Most have an outer coat of hard feathers, so they still need heat, but they don’t have to be under the lamp all day. It’s time to expand their horizons.

I closed up the Old Girls in their run, and left them with food and water.

Steve cut a doorway between the brooder and the coop. I opened it up. New things are scary.

Who will be the first chick to step out? The Buff Orpington, true to her breed, is calm and trusting.

The little Ameracauna that I call “Owly” was close behind.

To encourage the chicks to venture forth, I put the their food and water, and a dandelion clump, into the Little Barn coop. That wasn’t enough for some of the more timid birds, so I confess to herding them out of their secure and familiar brooder and into the unknown. The Blue Andalusian cockerel wasn’t the boldest, but somehow he does take up the forefront in many of my photographs.

Quite quickly the chicks overcame their wariness and explored this new environment. They enjoyed scratching in the sand.

You can see how secure they felt by how spread out they were.

While they were enjoying their new surroundings, I cleaned out the brooder and put down fresh shavings. Chicks poop a lot and create a tremendous amount of dust that is mostly composed of fine particles of manure and feathers. I don’t want them breathing that in. Then I spent some time sitting amongst them. Chickens are innately curious beings. This Dominique checked out my shoe.

It was all quite tiring! But that was okay. A nap can be taken anywhere.

Yesterday the chicks spent the day outdoors! More about that adventure in another post.

This is what happens when you take goats out on leashes and hand-graze them on the lawn for thirty minutes. Just look at those bellies!

It takes an afternoon of cud-chewing and relaxing to digest what’s in those round tummies.

Caper did manage to heft himself up for a scratch under his chin.

Goat smiles were accompanied by goat burps. It was a very good goat day.

The other day a visitor walked across the lawn.

The Great Blue Heron is a strikingly interesting bird.

The heron has come to eat the fish and frogs in the Little Pond. Lily won’t allow that. As elegant as the Great Blue Heron is on it’s tall legs, it is awkward as it lifts off into the sky to fly.

So, I give the heron a head start before I release Lily.

Steve did some measuring and computations. Lily was running at 20 MPH.

Go, Lily!

Good-bye heron!

Steve needed to adjust a bolt on the mineral feeder. Caper offered to help.

First, Caper tasted the vice grip to make sure that it was the right tool for the job.

He suggested to Steve that the vise grip could be better used scratching his head, right between his horn buds.

Sometimes Caper cannot believe his own brilliance. It’s a good thing that Steve listens to him.

It was Pip and Caper’s fourth birthday yesterday! To see what they looked like when they arrived, go here.

Almost exactly two years ago I got a box of chicks in the mail. Happy Birthday, girls! Of those chicks, three were Buff Orpingtons. All of the chicks were named after Gems and these three became Amber, Beryl and Topaz. Amber is my ideal hen. She is friendly, calm and beautiful. During the season, she lays an egg about every other day. I take her to meet classrooms full of children who pet her. Beryl and Topaz are also beautiful. But they are also broody. All the time.

This is what they look like if you deign to remove them from their nests.

Here is a close-up of beautiful, broody Beryl.

Unlike her sister, Amber, I cannot take this chuffed-up hen to storytimes. Nor does she lay eggs. It’s not a big deal to have a couple of useless broodies taking up space. I have enough nesting boxes.

But, a lovely woman named Kim loves Buff Orpingtons, broodiness and all. She also has a coop large enough to accommodate their quirks. Kim came to my Chicken Keeping Workshop last year so I know that she knows what she’s doing. Yesterday Kim and her friend, Diane, drove down from Maine to take my two Orps. She said hello to Agatha. From this photo you can tell she’s a good chicken person.

She gathered up Beryl.

We carried the hens to the crate in her car.

Off the hens went to their new home. Kim lives near the ocean, so the hens will have cool breezes to keep them comfortable, even if they stay broody all summer. But, it looks like the change in scenery just might get them up and out and active.

They immediately took dust baths.

Then they surveyed their new realm.

Beryl and Topaz are in the right place for them, and now I have the space to keep a couple more of the new chicks!