Spiderific!

We kept going back and forth between the stuff we had to do for construction of the coop and watching the chickens. At one point, Pirate Guillermo came in with a millipede and set it down in the pen. It sat there for a minute, curling and uncurling. The chicks didn’t pay it much mind until it started flipping itself around, and then one particularly intrepid little chick snatched it up and started running around the pen, peeping loudly. Every other chick in the pen gave chase, peeping and flapping and otherwise having a lovely time. Once in a while the chick would drop the millipede and someone else would snatch it up and run away and everyone would chase him.

A little while later, I found a gigantic spider and I put it in the chicks’ pen. It took them a while to find it, and the spider himself was no fool. He crouched in a corner, seemingly aware that the second he moved, the chicks would see him and come for him. It was an accident that one of the chicks found him and gave him a little peck. The spider scurried through the mesh of the pen and the chicks were done out of one heck of a feast.

For the rest of the day, every time we found a sizeable spider, we’d stick it into the chicks’ pen and they’d grab it up. I don’t know offhand whether they actually ate the spiders and bugs, but they had a grand old time chasing them around.

Next week, we can let them out of the pen for the first time. I think that might come early. They seem too curious about the world outside to keep them penned up forever.

That’s my chickens – already thinking outside the box!