Chicken Wranglers!!

Look how happy they are to have their chickens!! (don't know why this pic is b&w!)
We had the pick of the flock, so I choose this pretty lady.....I have no clue what kind she is!
This one just looked like the typical barnyard chicken.....I couldn't pass her up!
It was cold when we started, but warmed up to 80+degrees.....I wonder when the newness and fun will wear off??
What cute kiddos! They both wanted to help dadddy, so they attempted to use the shovel. Surprisingly, Wyatt had a couple of good scoops....Kash, well, we praised the effort!

I NEVER thought I would say this......I own chickens!!! Holy cow(I mean, chickens!). Yes, its true.....we spent the weekend becoming chicken farmers, ha ha. Wyatt has talked about getting chickens for some time now, and for some strange reason, we thought that now the time was right. He has mastered feeding the dogs(3), the farm cats(11) and now he can learn how to take care of the chickens(6)!

JR and I have no clue about chickens....other than they produce eggs and are great on the grill! We asked people questions, visited feed stores, and even bought a "how to" book about chickens! Then, we just bit the bullet and built a coop....a few hours later it was occupied with new tenants!

We got our chickens from people we knew in Heber.....the girl is actually a teacher at one of my schools. I began just by asking her about chickens, because I knew she had them. Next she was offering to sell me some (with 55 chickens, she had a few to spare!). Did you know chickens are cheap pets?? Only $5 each! We now have a small flock of 6 ladies.

It was a 2 day project(and 3 trips to Home Depot), we converted an old dog house into a coop, adding a nesting box with hinged lid to retrieve eggs and replacing the bigger roof with a new piece of plywood with 2 plexiglass "skylights' for the girls. We've been told that they lay more if they have more daylight. An old snow shovel handle works as their "roost' and all six cozy right up together on it. They have a 10'x8' chicken run which they seem quite content with. All we need to do it paint it and it will be done!

We'd like to let them run in the yard and eat the bugs, but we are worried if we turn them out, that they will either A)run away and we can't find them or B) we won't be able to get them back in the coop at night! Any advice on this matter would be appreciated!

We love the little ladies already and I'm sure they will bring us hours of entertainment and hopefully a sufficient amount of eggs!