Bedtime, and coop cops

Some of them decided to face the other way, for variety.  And two of them decided to have a big pecking fight, on the rail, with one uninvolved keet between them, hunched up low, keeping head down and out of the crossfire raging above him.   So funny.  Peck you!  No, peck you! They’re getting slightly more independent; they scatter wider.  

Packing up the three boxes of moms and chicks, to go into their safe house in the greenhouse (everyone goes in a lock box at night for weasel safety), Fiesty’s box was empty.  I found her in the weeds, pretty well concealed.

Daisy’s Silkie chicks are always slipping out of Silkieland, which is fine, but at bedtime, they aren’t so good at remembering where they came out.  Cheep, cheep, cheep!  They run up and down the footboard crying and I have to assist.  

Unfortunately, the beautiful silver one isn’t the sharpest tool in this shed.  He’s always the one that runs right past the open door while the other two run in.

She knows I’m coming for her.

Inky.  Inky is gorgeous and very very sweet.  But she is determined that she sleeps in the pine tree.  She’s too sweet to get involved in the night coop drama.  I have two coops with night drama problems now (why!?).  In Alpha coop, it’s Perchick, that posts herself up on top of the ramp like St. Peter.  You get to come in.  No, you’re not invited.  Peck.  (why!!?) I have to get in and sweep her out of the way so the crowd of young chickens milling around can just go to bed already.   Inky skips this and goes straight to the same spot in the pine tree.  But for her safety, I have to pluck her and put her in the coop.

 In the Silkie coop, there’s two culprit hens.  They sit in the doorway: You shall not pass.  Everyone just wants to go to bed, the chicks are all overtired and crying, making a big racket.  It’s very frustrating.  I take them and put them in the farthest nesting box, but they pop out again and again, like Whack-a-mole.  These two are first on the list to go to a new home (not a euphemism- I do sell and trade birds – I literally can’t keep them all).