We made a mad rush last week to complete the new coop as we were going to be gone for the weekend. I’m still exhausted from the effort plus all of the food prep, packing, etc… that needed to be done for our camping trip. Although it wasn’t completely finished, it was finished enough to move the flock in late Friday evening. They seemed fine the next morning as we headed out and all was well upon our return – whew!

Unfinished business includes the nest box – it has a temporary front and top, and only one divider for now. The metal roofing still needs to be installed but M did get the plywood sheeting and the tar paper up before we left. I need to cut and install the vinyl flooring in the coop and M wants to build a shelf for the waterer to sit on – it is currently hanging from a hook. I’d like to figure out some clever way to make that plastic bucket waterer look better, but in the meantime, it will have to do. The pic makes it seem a little more ramshackle than it is, but it will be spiffed up soon. I put up a temporary fence so the chickens could have an outing – plenty of bugs and weeds for them to clear out of that bed before I plant it.

We need to pick up another yard of gravel to spread around the exterior and fill in the drainage ditch and then put the boardwalks in place. The doors on the right side of the coop need to be painted and the interior coop wall needs to be finished. The ramp up to the coop needs tweaking – it seems a little too steep for the girls, so most of them are flying up at night in the opening where the rest of the wall will go. M is going to cut a pop door so we can close it off in the winter in order to keep it a little warmer in there.

She-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named (aka She-She) has been broody for the last three weeks and despite my efforts to break her broodiness, she has persisted. I felt bad, but we have been so overwhelmingly busy lately and the new coop wasn’t finished that it just didn’t seem like a good idea to add baby chicks to the mix. I took eggs out from under her and carried her out into the yard several times a day, but she would just run back in and get back into a nest. The other girls decided to help her out by getting into the nest with her to lay their eggs – talk about solidarity!

I thought being moved into the new coop would break the broodiness once and for all, but when we came back from our trip there she was setting nine eggs! I decided that determination like that should be repsected. Now that we have a more protected coop I think letting her have a go at motherhood is a good decision. I’ve set her up with a temporary brooding box, her own food and water and an area of the coop that is blocked off with a little hardware cloth so she isn’t completely isolated from the flock.

I left her with 5 eggs – two Buffs and three Barnevelders. We are quite curious to see what a Barnvelder x Buff Orpington will look like. I’m not sure if this will pan out – I may have waited too long to let her have a clutch of eggs to hatch, but only time will tell. I hope she doesn’t give up the fight at this point. I’ll candle them at 10 days to see how things are progressing. I read that non-viable eggs obviously rot and can explode and is a situation you want to try and avoid.

Maybe we will have a few chicks running around here in a few more weeks – that will be fun!