Yesterday at about 7:00pm I decided to let the chickens out of the run for the first time. I waited until 7:00 because they normally go to bed around 8:00 – this meant that it was fairly easy for me to get them back into the run at the end.
I must admit letting them out of the run made me feel really nervous as I really couldn’t tell if they would try and escape the garden. When I opened the door to the run Daisy was the first to step outside which was no surprise – she is definitely the most tame and has tried to escape from the run before when I have changed their food. The other two looked a bit unsure about leaving but once Daisy had wandered off they followed.
The girls loved scratching around in the new flower bed
One of the first things the girls did after I let them out was to start flapping their wings and fly down the length of my garden which gave me a bit of a scare! I thought they were going to end up on the other side of the fence but I think they were just stretching their wings. The girls pecked about for nearly an hour and loved scratching about in the newly dug flower bed (with no flowers yet).
One thing that annoyed me was that there were loads of kids in the school field out the back shouting obscenities at each other which I think stressed the girls out. You can normally hear people in the parks but the school field is immediately behind our garden so this made a lot more noise in our garden.
At about 7:45 one of the girls walked back in the run so I threw some seed in to encourage the others back in. It was great to see the girls scratching around in the garden but made me very nervous! I’m not sure if I’m going to let them out again tonight…
Exploring behind the run