Clean Coop

It's needed it for a few weeks now, but who wants to clean out a chicken coop when it's 95˚ outside?  The weather was a little cooler today with cloud coverage and some sprinkles of rain, so we decided to go for it.  We shoveled out the run as well as the hen house.  It's the first time I've done the hen house because we use the deep litter method in there.  Honestly, even in the heat we've been having, the smell was not coming from the hen house.  The run was gross.  We bought fresh pine shavings for the hen house and a bale of fresh straw for the run.  I tried letting them have just dirt in the run, but that started to stink very quickly.  Having a bedding of some kind really keeps the oder down, and it give them something to do.

The chicks are all living at my parents' house right now because we had gone away for a few weeks on vacation.  They are almost ready to be integrated into the rest of our flock now.  They have a nice set up with my parents.  My dad built them a nice run in addition to the run that goes with the coop.  They have more space there than they would in our little coop.  When they are ready to hold their own with the big girls, we will bring our three of the six back home.  They are about 11 weeks old now.  We'll give them a few more weeks before making the change.