Chicken Update:

Where should I start?.... The last update was a few weeks ago, and a lot has changed in the lives of our chickens. We waited to move the chickens outside until after our vacation (one of the local teenagers chickensat for us). When we left, our chickens were going through a funky adolescent phase. They looked horrible: half chick/half chicken. Poor things looked like they were having a really bad hair day. When we returned, not only were we happy they were still alive, but they actually looked like chickens again. Of course,being sick and tired of them in our kitchen and also feeling bad that they appeared to be cramped in the brooder, we immediately moved them outside to their coop. We are all much happier. And my wonderful husband even created a run for them for when we are working and don't want them free-ranging unsupervised. When they are free-ranging, they apparently find me ripping weeds out of the garden very fascinating.

So what have we learned so far?

1. While chicks may be cute, as they get bigger they stink and it is highly recommended that you keep them in a garage, mud room , or basement; basically any place other than the kitchen.

2. If you clean their butts, don't even tell chicken people that you are doing so; you will be laughed at, even if you heard it in a class and verified it by looking it up online.

3. When cleaning up the space the brooder was in, expect to find a million little chick feathers (that are incredibly hard to get rid of) and dust all over the place. Once again, I wouldn't recommend keeping them in the kitchen, it took me forever to clean this weekend.

4. The best form of entertainment can be gotten from dropping a cherry on the ground. They love them and will chase each other all over the place for the stupid thing.

5. Everyone that tells you that chickens won't wonder far from the coop if you wait until 1:30 to free range them is right. So far they have not gone much more than 5 feet from the coop.

6. They are still a lot of fun to have, and toddlers can actually be taught to play nicely with them, most of the time.......