I was planning to put the chicks out into their nursery in the henhouse on Sunday, but a few days before that the weather report changed to show a strong cold front moving through late Sunday night. So I decided to be cautious and wait until Monday, because even though past broods have seemed to do fine in cold weather as long as I had a heat lamp on, in those cases it got colder after they were already in there for a week or so and thus acclimated to lower temperatures than those in my warm bathroom. In this case, it was predicted to be cold on their very first night, and I just didn’t want to risk it. By all other criteria, though, they’re ready to be out there and I’m ready to have them there, because they’ve reached the “pain in the butt” stage now. Chicks always start out so cute, but after about two weeks they’re constantly throwing food and shavings all over the place and fouling their water so regularly that I have to clean it nearly every time I go in there, and replace it at least once a day. And these are even bigger irritants than usual; they’re constantly getting out of their box to run around the bathroom, and the mess they’re making is like what one might expect from a dozen chicks rather than three. So I’m ready for them to move out to the coop, even though next year I’ll completely forget about the Birds of Hell and their unholy mess, and be all ridiculously delighted by the cute little chicks until we get back around to this stage again.
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