1st night out

well the girls all 6 survived their 1st night in the outside coop, checked on them this morning after pacing from the house to the coop until about 10 pm or so then My lady told me to come in for the night. Kinda felt like like my daughters 1st date pace pace pace look out the window and pace some more.


Opened up the coop main door today girls are a tad timid on coming out into the run guess they'll learn at some point

Once a protective Dad, always a protective Dad - that's not a bad thing.

Oh, I can so relate to that! I evicted my chicks last year when the noise and the dust just got to be too much. Our coop wasn't even totally finished but on April 1st, out they went! I stuck a heat lamp out there. I had put a wireless thermometer in there too, with the receiver on the nightstand by my bed. Big mistake! I kept opening one eye and watching that number get smaller and smaller. It was 20 degrees in there. So of course then I had to keep getting up and checking on them. I'd put on my boots and my heavy coat over my flannel jammies and run out, open the door, shine the flashlight on them, and they were all cuddled in a pile in front of the pop door, nowhere near the heat lamp. I got up after a night of constantly jumping up and running out there expecting to see chick-sicles but they were just fine...they'd eaten and were waiting for me to open the pop door so they could go out into the run. It was the same story the second night, except I only got up once. So that third day the first thing I did was take out the heat lamp! That night it snowed. A lot. And we didn't get our last snowfall until June 6th. They are hardier than we give them credit for, I think.

Now I skip that whole headache and brood them out in the run from the start regardless of temps. Way easier on my nerves, and they seem to grow faster, feather faster, and adapt to the rest of the coop routine beautifully. But isn't that first night a wooly-booger?

Welcome to BYC! I'm glad you joined us!

Welcome to BYC. Glad you decided to join our flock, and I'm glad everything went well with your birds the first night out in the coop. ) If you haven't done so already, definitely check out our Learning Center at https://www.backyardchickens.com/atype/1/Learning_Center. There is lots of useful information there. Please feel free to ask any questions you may have. We are here to help in any way we can. Cheers.

Welcome to the BYC flock! We are glad you joined us!

Welcome to Backyard chickens

Hello!

Welcome to BYC and the coop! There's a lot of great peeps here! Feel free to ask lots of questions. But most of all, make yourself at home. I'm so glad you decided to joined the BYC family. I look forward to seeing you around BYC.

Oh yeah, I remember that first night with the girls in the coop. Talk about separation anxiety, it was so quiet in the house and I could hardly wait to run outside in the morning to make sure everyone survived. They did just fine without me hovering (but I needed a nap).

Thanks for joining us!