Graduation Day

Not for the big (real) kids of course, but for the big chicks and for the little chicks!

We have a 'big' house and a 'little' house...  

We had the big chicks in the big house, the middle chicks in the little house and the little chicks in the big house but they were in a little brooder.  

Got that?

Of course you did... now let's move on...

When you buy new chicks, they all have to be separated from the other chicks. You put them in a brooder to stay warm, safe and make sure they are healthy.  However, they outgrow that brooder rather quickly... say in two weeks.  

So, we needed to move them to the little house to grow some more.  However, we have the middle chicks in the little house.  Those middle chicks were the little chicks two weeks ago, but they have grown to the middle chicks now and they needed to be moved to the big house so the little chicks can go to the little house.  

I hope you are keeping up with this.

We took the middle chicks from the little house and put them in the big house.  

Here starts the state of confusion.  No one knows where they were supposed to be!

One went up high.  Others are determined to stay with mom:

There were the chicken portrait imposters:

 And did you notice mom's 'bottom'?  Yeah, it isn't gold and white... just sayin'...



Total chaos!  No one knew what to do!

Then things started settling down... well, after a few flutters:

And all became quiet in the 'big house':

So we took the little chicks out of the brooder from the big house and put them in the little house.  

Quite a scary time for them:

But soon they settled in for the long haul:

 

In a few days, things will be 'normal' again; and they will be the middle chicks in the little house needing to be moved to the big house.

Graduation day is a chore on the farm.  Getting everyone where they belong, making sure the little chicks don't ruffle the big chicks feathers, making sure all the proper food is where it needs to be; lots of fluttering, feathers flying, chicks going this way and that way, perfectly sane adults turn into animated characters crawling under coops, around coops, over coops - running like a blazing idiots after a wayward chick... yeah, fun stuffs.  But finally we get it all together, the chickens where they belong and things settle down.

And then the next morning, I wake to find this:

 

The little chicks broke out of the little house!  They were with the middle chicks and the big chicks hanging around outside the big house.

I give up.  

Chicken farmers live in a state of confusion.

Chickens seem to like it that way.