Remember the chicks one overjoyed new nine year old got for her birthday?

Well, much like that nine year old, they’re growing by leaps and bounds. Therefore, they outgrew the small chick cage and moved on to the yard version outside.

With quadrupling their size, our happy pullets then moved on to the deluxe coop recently. They seem to really enjoy the bug buffet in there. And while they flew the coop into our larger yard a couple of times on the first day, they’ve since settled into their new, expanded bird sanctuary as their home.

We have it in the books to upgrade the hutch to an enclosed laying house before heading to South Africa at the end of next month (and about the earliest the pullets could start laying), but for now the old cage is a good perching place and rain shelter.

Since we don’t have chicken predators within our property’s walls, the fence is there as a courtesy idea to keep dogs, rabbits, chickens and children from mingling 24/7 (especially when we have neighbor kids over to play) and also makes for easier future egg collecting (less daily Easter egg hunting throughout the yard 😉). Our dogs have very little interest in the chickens, honestly, and have accepted them as “just another one of us” like our bunnies that have free reign in the yard with the dogs.

Yeah, the chicks have grown into teenager pullets, with all their awkward feathers growing in patches like a bad haircut. Haha. But the love for them hasn’t changed one bit. 🙂

And this chick mama is still loving her babies as much as ever before. ❤️