Chicken Update: The Girls in June

Well, they aren't laying eggs yet, but the girls are getting used to their new digs. I try to let them out to roam around for a few hours each day...although I try to stay outside with them. When we were working outside on Sunday, Molly wandered up the hill behind our house (into the neighbor's back yard) and was chased around by a cat. The sqawking and sound of ruffled feathers alerted me and I went running to her rescue. Needless to say, the rest of the day the group hung out in our own yard.

 This is Giraffe. I'm pretty sure that she's my Rhode Island Red. 

Still waiting to see what happens to Julia's feathers.

Milly has beautiful blond neck feathers. 

Her and Molly are the largest chickens so far, 

and the ones who are the slowest learning to fly around. 

Blackie is still my curious girl. She's also the one most I hold most of the time because she's not as flighty.

 A rare moment when I grabbed hold of Milly.

Remember that little yellow ball of fluff, so stereotypic of baby chicks?
Yep, that's her above. I'm thinking that Julia is my Buff Orphington,
but we'll see. She's pretty good natured and is
another one who will let you hold her.

The girls out for their daily forage. Molly is front and center,
scratching up the leaves looking for worms and bugs. 

Thankfully, there are a TON out back.

 A side view of Molly. I love her feathers! She is one of my Americauna's, 

and should lay blue-green eggs come October.

The inside of the completed coop! My husband did such a fabulous job on their house! They sleep in the nesting boxes every night, and use their chicken door to access their porch. At night, we shut up the porch and close the door to the coop, preventing any predators from access to the inside.

Here's their outside porch. They spend a lot of time on the roost and love

 to scratch around for bugs in the dirt out here. I like knowing they always have 

access to sun and fresh air, on days when I can't let the roam the yard. 

This is a treat I gave them the other day: Greek yogurt, bananas, and arugula. They LOVE bananas and arugula, although the yogurt was new for them. Mostly they just walked around in it, but I'll introduce it again. Yogurt is supposed to be really good for chickens, and you know, it helps keeps those chicken-yeast-infections away.

I know I haven't posted much lately, but I've been busy working on a writing project. I'm trying to be better about posting more often, but it ebbs and flows. I'll post a garden update in a few days; it's raining now (so sick of the rain) and I'll wait to take pictures of the garden when it's sunny. So far, though, I've planted summer squash, zucchini, potatoes, tomatoes, green beans, garlic, cucumbers (slicing and pickling), beets, shelling peas, and sugar snap peas. The blueberries are looking wonderful, and the blackberries are budding out well too. My raspberries as always, are a pain in my ass, and we'll see if I keep them in the garden after this year! Oh, and did I mention 10 pumpkin plants are now taking off in the back yard? Looks like it will be a fun fall!