Hello, new flock mistress here, with a question.
I've successfully raised eleven darling little girls (not all mine) in my front room (sigh) and they just went outside for the entire night last night (relieved sigh). They'll be six and seven weeks old tomorrow and have most of their feathers. We'd been putting them out during the day and bringing them in at night but they had become reluctant to come in so we went outside and put them in the hen house. The hen house is inside an entirely fenced area, roof included. I put them in to get them used to going in at night and then I did it again tonight. Fortunately, six of the eleven chose to go in themselves (it might have been the raisins I threw in for them) and the others were fairly simple to grab and put in. There was none of the pitiful peeping tonight that there was last night, they just accepted it and went to sleep.
My question is this: Do I have to shut them in at night after they get older and bigger? I'm confident in the security of the coop coupled with the fact that I live in town with a six foot privacy fence and I was thinking of just letting them settle where they will. Sometimes they'll roost, sometimes they wont. I live in western Colorado so the nights are in the high 50s and low 60s now and when it gets warmer they may want more air.
Another question: The six week old Americauna has not gotten as far along with her feathering as the others, as a matter of fact, she's smaller and only about 70% feathered out. She's very feisty and pretty healthy otherwise. Is this unusual for this breed?
Thanks to all of you who help out novices like myself and for those who share their stories. I'm sure that I'll have more questions later.
Mary
I've successfully raised eleven darling little girls (not all mine) in my front room (sigh) and they just went outside for the entire night last night (relieved sigh). They'll be six and seven weeks old tomorrow and have most of their feathers. We'd been putting them out during the day and bringing them in at night but they had become reluctant to come in so we went outside and put them in the hen house. The hen house is inside an entirely fenced area, roof included. I put them in to get them used to going in at night and then I did it again tonight. Fortunately, six of the eleven chose to go in themselves (it might have been the raisins I threw in for them) and the others were fairly simple to grab and put in. There was none of the pitiful peeping tonight that there was last night, they just accepted it and went to sleep.
My question is this: Do I have to shut them in at night after they get older and bigger? I'm confident in the security of the coop coupled with the fact that I live in town with a six foot privacy fence and I was thinking of just letting them settle where they will. Sometimes they'll roost, sometimes they wont. I live in western Colorado so the nights are in the high 50s and low 60s now and when it gets warmer they may want more air.
Another question: The six week old Americauna has not gotten as far along with her feathering as the others, as a matter of fact, she's smaller and only about 70% feathered out. She's very feisty and pretty healthy otherwise. Is this unusual for this breed?
Thanks to all of you who help out novices like myself and for those who share their stories. I'm sure that I'll have more questions later.
Mary