We found a new home for our rooster yesterday. He’s very vocal and it was bothering our neighbors, and we’re not supposed to have a rooster anyway. He’s gone from being the king of our big, sunny yard to being at the bottom of the rooster pecking order now that he lives with an older, bigger, Barred Rock rooster. The two of them have a larger flock to split. I know he’ll be okay, but I still feel sad about it & I’m going to miss him.

About four weeks ago, one of our hens broke her foot. We were using a recycled fence board as the ramp into the coop, and it had a split in it. She got her foot caught at the top of the ramp and gravity did the rest. (The board has been patched!) We got her put into a splint and isolated her for three weeks. I’m thinking maybe that was a mistake — we should have splinted her and let her stay out with the flock, because now she’s getting picked on by the head hen. (I’ve started calling the head hen “Aunt March” in my mind.) Broken Claw has been out in her own little run in the yard now for about a week, and at night we put her into a medium sized dog crate & put her in the coop. She seems to like the crate at night, but we really want her to be mixed back in with the other hens now.

The chickens are 19 weeks old today.