Spring finally reached us as well, and within a week summer was hurrying along behind it.
The first clutch, a month old by now, could at last move out to the coop and run outside.
The first nights were still so cold (below 0 C) that on three evenings I gathered the chicks up and took them to sleep under the shed roof.
In the morning I took them back out. And so it went for three days. I put them into the coop first, so that they would climb out into the run themselves and at the same time work out to creep inside for shelter in the evening or in the cold, because I was not going to keep taking them indoors for the night. Not a bit of it. In the evening it was already properly cold outside (7 C), yet there they were, huddled together under the coop, cheeping pitifully. I coaxed them with boiled egg and grain to climb through the hatch into the coop, but nothing doing. Only the more curious ones came up the ladder, looked in through the hatch and scurried back to the others.
So once again I crawled under the netting, caught all 26 chicks one by one and pushed them in through the hatch. With my other hand I blocked the hatch so that the keener ones would not fly straight back out again.
On the second evening outside the same performance was repeated. On the third evening it was already so warm (+15 C forecast for the night) that I thought I would leave them out overnight if they had still not mastered going in through the hatch. But surprise: when I went out, the run was empty. Every last clever little head had crept into the coop for shelter and they were already asleep in a heap.
From then on they went into the coop to sleep by themselves every evening at exactly 21.15.
Sadly, within a week the run around the coop was already too small for them and the grass turned to bare black earth. We fenced off a corner of the garden with netting, and a nice patch of our own lawn became the pullets' playground. In the morning I open the hatch of the run and in the evening I close it again, so that no villain (a fox, a stoat, a weasel) can get in. In the morning, when I open the hatch, they actually fly a couple of laps around their coop out of sheer joy. After that there is time to peck grass and wander about.
Pictures of the little birds at 4, 5 and 6 weeks:
