Hubby put the door on the extension to the henhouse today.  It's not quite finished, as he has cut the bottom panel out, and he forgot to buy some plywood which he is going to make a pophole door out of.  He's also considering taking out the top 2 panels of glass (as the door has 6 panels of glass in) and making them into vents.   And I'm hoping the door glass will provide enough light into that part of the shed so we don't need any more windows.  If we do, I can just get a suitable one from the skip at the local conservatory and DG place.  They are always pleased to let us have any bits we want, as it gives them a bit more space in the skip!!!

The chicks not only make a lot of very fine dust, but they also produce a lot of heat!  So we want them to have as much ventilation as possible while they are in the house.  Once, they are settled in, we are ging to fence off half the run so we can rotavate and re-seed one half and let the chicks run in the other half.

I also bought some nice new galvanised rollaway nest boxes which arrived Monday.  They have perches on the front which close up at night so the chooks don't get used to sleeping in the nestboxes.  We are going to put it in the big house so the chicks can get used to what a nest box is, and I'm going to put perches in there for them, so when they go to their new homes, they will be used to perching!

I weighed some chicks yesterday, they should be between 730 and 800 gms now, and they are between 700 and 825gms, so they are still well on target!

When I went into the big house today to fill their feeders up, I noticed some blood on 2 of the chicks wings!  So some of them are still feather pecking!  It may be because they are still growing so fast, and I haven't been able to let them out yet.  They are getting frustrated.  So those 2 got the purple treatment and back in the cold frame hospital!! 

It doesn't help that they still have their beaks, but de-beaking is now illegal in the UK and it is painful for the chicks.  But now when I go into the sheds, I make sure I wear my wellies!  If I wear shoes, they peck my ankles, and if I wear my boots, they undo the laces and hang off the toggle on my garden coat!  So now I wear my wellies so they can't reach me, and I've taken the toggle and cord off one of my old coats, but I've still got to take them off the other one!!

I've got a nice lady coming tomorrow all the way from Berkshire to buy 4 chicks!! She said she's been unable to get any white ones nearer to her home, so she's coming all the way up here to get them!