Outdoor Chickens and New Friends

The girls are outside! The chicken yard needs some beauty
work to get it how I want it, but it's a virtual fortress!
We have a kennel reinforced on top and bottom with a wire mesh
"ceiling" and "floor".
On the ground, we covered the wire mesh with 2 inches of
dirt for a more natural and comfortable environment. No raccoons
are climbing or digging in this fence! And even if the found a way, we
lock these ladies up at night in their cozy little house.

You'll notice by the pictures that I couldn't resist adding
to my flock. Heck - we had the room! We now have:
2 Auracanas (Midge and Opal) -Will lay blue eggs
1 Buff Orpington (Fiona) - light brown eggs
1 Cuckoo Maran (Sally) - dark brown eggs
1 Welsummer ( Annabelle) - dark brown eggs
1 Buff Brahma (Frances) - light brown eggs

You can see in the first photo that the 3 new girls were
a little intimidated and spent some time hiding in the corner
for a while. Never fear, though. Once put in the coop for the
night, we peeked in the top hatch and saw all the chickens
in one big heap, cuddling like they were all the best of friends.

Above - Midge, Fiona, and Frances
Below - Sally

Below - Opal

Below - Opal, Sally, Annabelle

My dirty little helper, trying to shake her way into

the yard. After today, I had to rinse her in the tub, drain the

brown water, fill it up again with clean water, and

scrub all the dirt off her little self. :)