They are now in their own part of the old chicken lot—complete with feeder, waterer, and two five-star accommodations. (In this case, a couple of rubbermaid tubs that have lost their lids; John cut doors into them and filled them with straw.) What more could little chickens (and turkeys) want as they grow toward adulthood?
In the brooder box. (I cleverly photographed them by holding the camera below the chicken wire, pressing the button and hoping things were not too awfully out of focus. It worked—sort of. These are the best of them.)
The yellow ones are Buff Orpingtons. The black and whites are Anconas—at least, the ones with white heads are. The larger black and whites, with black on their heads, are turkey poults. (Courtesy of John's friend Howard, who appeared one day on the doorstep with a box containing four baby turkeys.) The brown ones with the circles around their eyes (you can see one in front of the bottom picture) are, I think, Sicilian Buttercups, and the other brown ones—the speckledy ones—are Speckled Sussex.
At least that's what I think they are. As they say, all will be made clear in the fullness of time . . .
What is this?
It seems to be making a lot of noise . . . and it certainly smells interesting.
It's . . . baby chickens!
Buff Orpingtons and Anconas in this side . . . 
Speckled Sussex and Sicilian Buttercups here.
They came the other day. (The P.O. called at 6:15! Fortunately, John got up to answer the phone . . . ) They have since moved down to one of the brooder boxes in the back, and are doing well. And the cats are all ignoring them—also fortunately!
They've been joined (today) by a turkey poult—the eggs in the borrowed incubator have begun to hatch! So we are staying at home, mostly, and keeping a weather eye out for more hatching . . .
It was windy all day yesterday—blustery, gusty, cold wind—but this hen (she's an Araucana cross—what do you expect?) was bound and determined to roost on the garden fence, completely unprotected . . . 
She was still up there when John went down to feed, but the promise of laying mash and scratch feed lured her to the ground!
(And, while we're speaking of idiotic things to do—who was out there in that same wind, wearing a sweater and sandals and taking pictures of her? Right . . . )
This is the chicken that roosts in the evergreen in the side yard . . . every evening about four o'clock she comes up on the porch, has a few nibbles of cat food, a little water, meanders around the yard for a bit, and flies up into the tree for the night. None of the others that escape periodically ever come around here; apparently it's HER territory.
The world is full of things both strange and wondrous . . .
Well, not exactly the last—but the last for this year, we hope. We spent a couple of hours rounding up chickens this evening. As John called it, a chicken drive. . .
They've spent the summer down in the goat lot, free-ranging to their little chicken hearts' content; we opened up the fence between the two chicken lots (the old small one and the new larger addition) and into the lot with the goats, so they could all go down the hill and munch greenery. And so they did . . . and they were reluctant, to say the least, to give all that up. (Even though the greenery is only a memory now.)
Come fall, they needed to go back into their lots, and out into the garden, so they can scratch and dig and fertilize happily all winter. To accomplish this, John had to fence in one side of the turkey house (the side facing the lot), because the goats have taken to sleeping underneath—which suits us fine, because it's nice and cozy under there, away from the prevailing winds, and it gives them two places to sleep when it's cold. However, they have also taken to going into the chicken lots and pigging out on laying mash (I expect Frank to begin producing eggs any day now), and they will happily devour my blackberry canes, so they must be kept out of the garden.
So . . . John spent yesterday afternoon putting up fence; he was watched with great curiosity by William and his cohorts, and they were not impressed at having limits put upon their freedom. They were even less impressed this evening, when we had to run them repeatedly out of the chicken lot, while trying to herd chickens in. John had left a goose-sized hole in the wire, so the turkeys and geese could get through but the goats couldn't. . . Hah! They're worse than cats—if a goat's head will fit, so will the rest of him. Somehow. . .
We finally ended up wiring the hole shut and chasing chickens/geese/guineas (thank heaven the turkeys were all up there already) with the net. Rather, John chased them with a net and handed whatever he caught to me so I could put it over the fence. There was much squawking and fluttering and flapping, but we prevailed . . . . eventually. That took care of all but a couple dozen, so he stationed me near the turkey house to prevent any chickens from escaping under it (it didn't, of course, but not too many got under) while he took the net and shooed them toward the far gate, which we had propped open. It opens into the garden, so that got most of them where we wanted them. After that it was only a matter of chasing the remaining dozen out from behind the goat shed and out from under the turkey house . . .
Now there are three still to be caught: one in the goat lot, one in the woods, and one in the yard. Tomorrow is another day . . .
Unfortunately I have no pictures—I was too busy grabbing chickens by anything available. But tomorrow I shall have to go out and reconfigure my watering system, and I'll take pictures of chickens happily digging up weeds (and perhaps a few tiny potatoes) in the garden, and eating comfrey instead of devouring my foxgloves . . . and perhaps of Frank, languishing by the chicken lot fence, yearning for laying mash . . .
I mean, really—look at him! He's about to go on a diet, and he's not going to like it . . .
Y'all know that we have chickens. Lots of chickens . . . Now, normally chickens are pretty biddable creatures: you feed them, you water them, you give them a coop to roost in and [hopefully] lay eggs in, and they hang around because they like all these things, and because they aren't terribly adventurous by nature.
Unless those chickens are Americanas (or Araucanas).
If they are, they will fly out of the lot at every opportunity and refuse to be herded back in. They will roost in trees. They will run like the wind, and fly like . . . well, like birds.
And they will set a BAD example for other chickens, who will then go and do likewise.
Not every Americana is like this, of course. Only some of them. And guess where one of those lives?
Right.
We have half a dozen renegade chickens (three Buff Orpingtons, two Barred Rocks, and an Americana—the ringleader and resident Bad Influence), who routinely fly out of the lot (and the chickens are in with the goats, which is half an acre or so—it isn't as if they don't have any room stretch their wings INSIDE the lot) and spend the day happily digging large holes in the mulched paths so I can step into them and twist my ankles, cleaning up under the bird feeders, wandering up to the driveway to see what's there, occasionally meandering over the neighbor's yard (the grass is greener, etc.), and napping under the weeping cherry when they get tired. (And no cat pays any attention at all to them, either. In fact, Sam can be seen frequently lying down and watching them a few feet away. He does the same thing with the squirrels. But I digress . . . ) There was a bit of excitement the other day when the neighbor's bloodhound came over to visit (he escapes regularly, but he goes back inside the fence before they get home) and somehow ended up with a chicken in his mouth. When I went out to rescue it, he had put it down and was looking rather puzzled, as in "How in the world did THAT get in my mouth?" The chicken was busily scratching around under a bush.
They all go back over the fence into the lot at night so they can roost in the chicken house.
At least five of them do. As for the other one (and guess which one it is?):
This is the big spruce tree on the south side of the house, which is not even remotely near the chicken/goat complex. See anything in this tree?
Take a closer look . . .
How about that?! It's a chicken! Guess which chicken this is?
Yep. It's her. I suppose I could catch her and put her back in the lot, but she's not bothering anyone, and nothing seems to be bothering her . . . after all, anyone can have a partridge in a pear tree, but not just anyone has a chicken in a spruce tree!
It was time—and past time—to move the little chickens (who are little no longer, other than in relation to Otto McNab, the big white rooster) . . . so the Man With The Net readied himself.
He altered the chicken-catching net (a fishing net in a previous life) by means of duct tape and an old hoe handle, so he wouldn't have to crawl into the Chicken Palace to retrieve little chickens. Instead, he was able to snare them several at a time as they tried vainly to escape out the end of the Palace.
There was still a fair amount of bending, but it wasn't as bad as it might have been . . .
This is an Aurucana/Americauna, who will at some future date produce lovely colored eggs—probably blue or green, but possibly pink. Note her greenish legs . . . she's also developing the characteristic cheek puffs.
Here, a fine example of the Chicken Handoff: John passes the uncooperative chicken to Roger, who stuffs it elegantly into an old cat carrier . . . several chickens later, he will empty it into the big lot. (And, as much as the little chickens didn't want to be put in, they don't want to be taken out either—even when the carrier is upended and shaken.)
Eventually everyone was transferred to the big chicken lot, where all sorts of enticing garden waste, laying mash, and scratch grain awaited. And look! There is Jesse, the goat-who-thinks-he-is-a-chicken . . . after all, there might be food to be had.
They weren't shy about checking out their new accommodations, either. In fact, they spent most of the next day hunkered down in the chicken house, taking over and annoying the big chickens so much that they retired to the straw underneath the house for the day.
Now, however, they've been in the big lot for a couple of days and the house is old hat. They're ranging wider . . . and there are new and different animals to annoy . . And new food! Bread! Hay! Spilled grain!
Chickens are, after all, all about eating . . . as evidenced by these big ones devouring what was left of the cabbage plants after John cut all the cabbages.
We've gotten all the peas now—John picked the last of them yesterday.
Peas for us (and for the freezer—8 pints!)
Peapods for the animals
Except for Frank, who obviously does not like peapods! (But that's OK—William ate enough for both of them.)
New home of little chickens, until they grow enough to go in with the big girls (and, if the way they're eating is any indication, that won't be long). It's just out the back door, between the house and the chicken yard; I can hear the little ones peeping all day long while I work in the back. It's wonderfully soothing . . . at least until I start wondering whether they've eaten all the last batch of feed yet . . . and they usually have . . .
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