Chicks are like children. They’re all sweet and innocent when they’re babies…

And we really like them when they’re sleeping…

But as they get older, they get funny looking, moody, and they start to smell bad…

When that happens, there’s only one thing you can do – move them in with someone else. Like these fine, unsuspecting folks!

Yesterday was moving day for the oldest chicks – about 26 chicks in all, made up of a mix of Barred Rock, Ameraucanas, Old English, Sumatra, and Sumatra Cochin crosses. Along with making the garage smell horrible (even the boys had started to comment on it), the chicks were starting to give us looks. Looks like, if I could, I would peck your eyes out.

So Tracy and Gus spent the bulk of the day making a temporary enclosure in the chicken barn for our broody teenage birds.

Tracy and I added the wire in the afternoon, and they were moved in soon after.

There’s a very nice video on our FaceBook page that shows the chicks getting to know each other (fighting) and their new home. They got it figured out fairly fast, and this morning everyone was sleeping together. Behind the waterer, of course, instead of under their light.

The older birds still aren’t sure of what to make of it, and so are mostly ignoring the chicks. We can’t wait until Simeon realizes he’s supposed to keep track of all of these, too. They still have a few weeks before they’ll be allowed into the run, and then another several weeks before we allow them to free range. By then, they should be out of the moody teenager stage and safely into the young adult ‘you’re stupid and I know everything’ stage. It’s at that point we’re expecting the older chickens to start asking for new accommodations.