The Young And The Roostless

Since Sunbeam's sad demise, the girls have been on lock down and I have only let them out for part of the day and only on days that I know I'll be home.  They are not happy about this and they let me know loudly and often!

Someone else who is not happy about this is Chirp, the neighbor girl's pet rooster.

He paces the run all day long, wishing he could be more valiant and come to the rescue of his lady friends.



"He's mine!"  "No!  I saw him first!"

I can live without a rooster, but the girls would rather not.  Unfortunately, I've had no luck with roosters.  All of mine have turned out to be mean.  It seems that Chirp, by virtue of not being my rooster, is a good rooster.



Even with the fenced pasture, I am still having about eight or nine hens that regularly fly over the 4-foot fence.  I was really hoping that wing clipping would do the trick, but it did not work.  About two-thirds of those I had to clip still fly over.

Garden season is quickly coming up, so I am debating whether or not I should go ahead and invest in an electric fencing system or if a few extra inches of poultry netting would be enough to do the job (I'm afraid that would look tacky though.)

Short of tying concrete anchors to their legs, I am really not sure how I am going to keep them in... I lose the benefit of free-ranging them if I can't let them out of their small run.  However, thirty chickens can't have run of the whole yard!