A little present for the girls

My chickens remain totally incapacitated by snow.  And now that we finally have some, they've spent the past week in their coop, refusing to go into the yard because of the terrifying blanket of white stuff.  I was concerned that this would not be good for the bullying situation, or for the overall state of the coop, so this morning I braved the 6 degree weather to shovel out part of the yard for the girls.  I was additionally motivated by Taperman's assertion that there is a direct correlation between chicken parenting and child rearing, and, since I haven't done an outstanding job in the chicken parenting department what with all of the dog/chicken debacles, I decided that I needed to step up my chicken parenting game.

So I hauled my six-months-pregnant self out with a shovel, and cleared out about a third of the yard.  Agnes, Alice and a rhode island red came out almost immediately to supervise, and by the time I was finished, the majority of the flock had decided to venture back out.  I only cleared the part of the yard that gets a good amount of sun, but it still gives the girl much more space than they had when they were self-confined to the coop.  Bullet and Lily found the whole process fascinating, especially when I accidentally tossed a frozen orange rind out of the yard.  Lily made that big score, and appeared to find it delicious.  Bullet was the happy recipient of a frozen egg (he ate the shell, too), and neither one of them rushed the fence, so I'm calling the morning a success.

You'll note that despite the shoveling, there's still a thin layer of snow on the ground.  Apparently, this does not meet the threshold amount that disturbs chickens.  I was happy that Alice, Agnes and the rhode island red clued me into this early on in the shoveling process, as it saved quite a bit of time and exasperation.  I think there might be a science to this.