Yay! My 12-week-old pullets went up into the coop by themselves last night! Granted, they are sleeping in a pile on the floor as close to the chicken door as they can get, but baby steps...the two nights before, we put them in the coop after dark (the first night was a chicken rodeo before we got all four in there) and yesterday I kept all 7 penned in the run (3 bigs, 4 littles) without any major incident. They have been free ranging together for a couple of weeks - meaning the 3 bigs range all over the yard and the littles stick close together around their grow out pen. I may leave them penned in the run one more day so the littles will get into their chicken brains that "oh, this is home now" and then let them out to free range the next day, after removing the grow out pen. I'm very encouraged that they went up by themselves last night though!
