Chicks have been doing fine with the chilly nights. They are now a full four weeks old.
I cut them an escape door to roam into the main run uninhibited with the big birds. A couple full growns have made some runs at them but most of them just want to stick their head into the escape door and eat whatever they are eating on the floor of the chick apartment. When I am not there to supervise, I place a log in front of the small door to keep them contained. Before letting them have uninhibited access I did some practice "scares" to attempt to teach the chicks to run to the safety of the escape hatch. The log tunnels also serve as small safety mountains the chicks can run up onto. I have yet to see a chicken so determined to peck them that it wants to scale or actually put effort into it. I am still surprised that the andalusian and the leghorns have done the best with them. The EE, RIR, and brabanters are the most testy.
Yesterday I took out their old small roosting ladder and put in two 6 ft 2x4 roosting bars. It was hilarious how the big chickens still crammed themselves into the same smaller space-but I suppose it is what they are used to. Then I put the old roost ladder in the run for added outdoor roost space! Additionally, I finished burying hardware cloth around the coop itself with the plan of leaving their small coop door open and only closing the larger man door. This will give them 7 sq ft coop space per bird with this model with 12 ft indoor roosting board space and 6 more ft outside roosting bar space. Frankly, as many roots as I dug through I question whether the hardware cloth was a better option! I know it will be in the end though.
I think altogether, when they fully integrate I think it will be a happy set up. When I open the coop man door they will have the access to the run with its 6-12 inches of glorious foraging at roughly 40 sq ft per bird (when not allowed to free range while we are outside).
