Spring Cleaning

Yesterday was the first annual (maybe biannual) chicken coop total cleaning. I took everything out that was take out-able and scrubbed it was a bleach solution. I then took all the wood chips out and scrubbed the the nesting boxes, etc. I shoveled out about a third of the old dirt and replaced it with new. All in all, it was a lot of hard work, but it looked good for the brief time between when I finished and when the chickens went back in. This morning it was all poopy again.

I tried to wait to do the inside of the coop until the eggs had been layed, but Myrtle apparently was a late layer. Poor girl. She was so anxious about me being in there with strange things like brooms and scrub brushes. She kept looking for a private place to nest, and at one point I thought she'd layed her egg in the bushes. She was so desperate that--I didn't see this for myself, but Andrew tells me--she even went into the house. The chickens rarely get within ten feet of the house. She finally had a moment to herself in the coop while the boxes were drying, so she end up laying her egg in a bare box.

The weather has been so beautiful lately that I've tried to let the chicks out as much as possible. Here are a few pictures, mostly of their upturned bottoms as they peck around in the yard.