I went out this afternoon and opened the pop door and eventually they came out to the run. Had a LOVELY time sitting with them and watching their antics. There's a corner behind where a log chunk is up against the coop and run walls, and little Terri would decide it was a good place to curl up and lie down, and then Steggie would too, and then Tyra, and then they'd be all crowded in too tight and it would go POOF and separate, or the back chick would escape via the windowsill, and it was just hilarious. Cera later on flew up to see me 3 different times.
We put a bowl of grit out, and set up a dust bath for them - a disposable papermache litterbox, and poured some of the cat litter in it - we use sWheatscoop, so it's all made of wheat starches and such. We showed it to them, and a couple of them took a bite or two, then seemed to ignore it. But when I came back out near sunset, two of them were dustbathing in it, Cera and Steggie, and then Terri joined in. Tyra stepped in and just stood there, I'm sure she'll get it.
I think it's so cool that they have the instincts to do this, even though they've never seen an adult chicken. And that they do the scrape-scrape-stepback-lookdown thing, looking to see if they've excavated anything interesting to eat.
The wire apron is all cut to length and all the sides have been bent - my poor DH Miles has sore hands - one side is staplegunned on, the other three are in place and held down with pavers but still need to get staplegunned. So the chicks are in the coop for the night with the pop door closed. There's a small flashlight in there shining up at the ceiling for a nightlight, a little LED one.
