Oh, so much excitement tonight!
I put up the partition in the run. I thought I'd see if the littles might like to come outside, and figured 7:30ish might be a good time. I was willing to stay for quite awhile. I thought they'd want to go back in when it got darker.
I opened the pop door. About 1 minute later, Stormy poked her head out. I knew she'd be first. Eventually, they all came out, got on the ground, walked around. As if on cue, they decided to take dust baths in the dirt. Dang, I should have brought their dust bath in and put it in their half of the run.
I watched them for about 15 minutes. Well, something to sit on would have been nice. And I could bring in their dust bath. They were all very occupied, and the adults had shown a bit of interest, but just looked.
I left through my "people entrance" to get the stuff, closing the fence behind me and was barely around the corner of the coop when I heard "Ba-BAWK! Ba-BAWK!" I ran back.
BLEEEP! They had gotten through an area that I thought was secure, but wasn't, by pushing between the fence and the coop. (Not my people entrance in the fence.) All three were loose in the adult's run. BLEEEP!!!
And the adults had run for their lives to the other end of the run.
I got the littles back through the same way they came out. They tried to come through again (Stormy leading the way), but I held the fence in place. After a minute, Stormy figured out she could jump up on the ramp and go into the coop through the pop door. The other two followed. I shut the pop door. Thus ended their first outing.
Yeah, it could have gone a whole lot differently and had a bad ending. But I won't forget the sight of the adults running away, Ba-Bawking.
Tomorrow, I'll attach the fence more securely to the coop. And bring in their dust bath and something to sit on.