A Slow Transition

Tonight will be the ladies third night in the new coop. Now I’ve never said that chickens are all that intelligent. Entertaining, yes. Intelligent, probably not. They are also creatures of habit. Yesterday we had heavy rainstorms come through late in the afternoon. I thought this would be an easy way to get the girls to jump right on in to their new coop and get out of the rain. I locked the goats in their stalls and opened up the big door. Nope. They would rather stand out in the rain looking longingly at their old coop, and wondering why they couldn’t get in there anymore.

Me and my girls went over to a friends for dinner last night, and when we got home it was fully dark out. I went out with a flashlight to investigate the situation, and was pleasantly surprised that probably 18 of the ladies actually did go into the new coop when it got dark out and were happily settled on their roosts. The other 11 were huddled out in the pouring rain by the ramp to their old coop. I went and scooped them up in my arms, two by two, and put them into the new coop for the night.

Today was a beautiful day, but while my kids were down at the beach playing, I was picking up farm supplies to sustain everyone while I’m away in Wyoming for two weeks. I was so excited upon my return home to discover 2 eggs laid in the new nesting boxes! Yesterday I amused myself by watching the chickens frantically trying to get into their old coop to lay their eggs to no avail. At the end of the day I found over a dozen eggs in the dog house and 7 in the goat’s hay rack.


Tonight my friend and I again locked the goats in their pens (if I didn’t do this they would just jump into the chicken coop and eat the chicken feed, which upsets their stomaches). Then, in addition to the two ramps they can use to enter the new coop, we opened up the big door as well and sat back to watch. As the light began to fade, we were so excited to see that a fair amount of the ladies actually did go into the coop of their own volition. Some chose to use the ramps.


Some chose to go in through the big door.


and some we had to be a little more forceful with.


Over on the goat side of the farm, Grace came down with a bad case of diarrhea yesterday and Kiki wouldn’t drink her bottle for a full two feedings. This is completely normal for a goat of their age and I’d been anticipating it. As baby goats begin to eat more “adult” goat food and hay their rumen starts to develop (goat’s have four stomaches and this is called a rumen). This almost always triggers a bout of diarrhea. Happily, after only one treatment of the medicine they were feeling better and this by last night Kiki was again drinking her bottle enthusiastically. They were actually both always in high spirits, but they just had upset tummies. They will stay on the medicine for four days total just to make sure it doesn’t come back.

I gave them a bath yesterday afternoon for the first time. Not because they were dirty, but they just didn’t feel as clean as they did a few weeks ago. They’re goats. They live in a barn. I don’t know what I expect. Anyway, they felt so wonderful and smelled so delicious after I could have eaten them right up.


That’s about it for the farm today. We’re hoping for a full attendance roster at light’s out tomorrow night in the chicken coop.