Freedom is overrated

Egg update:

We had two eggs on our first full day, followed by three yesterday.  We suspect Norma's not laying yet as she's still pretty ragged, but the way she's eating, she'll soon catch up with the rest.

Our first two eggs.  Thank you Piper and Taystee.

So with five eggs in, we're down to a cost of only £104.25 per egg.  Bargain.

First taste of freedom

This is as far as we're going...

Having given the girls a couple of days locked in the run to get settled in to their new home, we decided to let them out to explore the rest of the garden (and hope they don't try to escape.

I opened the door to the run, scattered some corn outside...  Big Boo stepped out to peck at the corn, the other three looked over at the open door, looked back at the feeder and made their decision.  We're fine in here, thanks.  After all the fuss Taystee made on the first day trying to get out, now she ignores an open door.

Big Boo explores

About twenty minutes later, the others ventured out.  They mostly stayed fairly close to the coop, but they had a good scratch around and a peck at the grass.  Big Boo came as far as the house, but didn't try to come in.

I managed to pick up Norma and have a good look over her.  She's very bony.  She's got a bald patch on the top of her head, her tail feathers are very thin and she's got a big bald bum.  We'll be monitoring all that closely, so expect a lot of pics of Norma's backside over the coming months.

Norma's baldy bum

As the sun went down, the girls decided it was bed time and all found their way back to the coop on their own.  Big Boo and Piper went in first and then seemed to call to the other two, who promptly trotted over and jumped up the ramp before snuggling up with the others to sleep.

It was really nice to see them going to bed by themselves.  On the first night I had to help Taystee and Norma into the coop, on the second night only Norma needed help.  Hopefully this is the way they'll do it going forwards.