What a difference a little electricity makes!

I came home Tueday night to find the power back on. So I put the heat lamp back over the Rosses and reset the timer for the coop light (on at 5am, off at 9pm). The next morning when I went to open the coop door, they were all up and ready to get out and start scratching around, doing their chicken thing. There wasn't the stampede I get in the summer, but better than their lethargic high-school-student do-I-have-to-get-up-now attitudes they've had since the power was turned off.

I'm still going to have to keep the Rosses for a few more weeks before sending them to the b*tcher. But they did hit a landmark today - I opened the fence that divided their part of the coop from the rest of the residents.

I did this for two reasons. First, they're at the age where the chick feeders are empty within seconds of my putting them down, which means they're ready for the hanging feeder. I only have one (until tomorrow, payday), but I thought they could learn to use the one that the big chickens use. Also, for the last couple of days, one of them has found its way over/under/around/through the fence, so it has officially outlived its usefulness.

Checking on them this evening, I wondered how they fared after a day in the real world. The answer: fine. One of them got brave and found its way into the goat pen, but then couldn't figure out how to get back (Note to self: on the evolutionary scale, Rosses are the closest in intelligence to the dinosaurs - Aviagen isn't breeding for intellect).

Another plus to letting them out has to do with the White Rock that is at the bottom of the pecking order. For the last week or so, I've had to take her out of the tack room because she takes refuge in there. But tonight when I locked up the chooks, she was sitting happily in with the others - relieved, no doubt, to be free from the stress of being on the bottom rung of the ladder.

Today's final observation comes from watching the Rosses enjoy their freedom a little this evening. Even though they're only about 2/3 to 3/4 the size of the grown hens, I noticed that their breasts were huge - almost as big as those on the full growns, but looking front-heavy because they're not fully grown yet. As my dad would have said (using his Lil' Abner voice), "It ain't natcheral."

This prompted me to wonder whether or not they were actually ready to be processed, but last year's experience with Rosses told me no. Last year about this time was when we transferred the two chicks we had out to the barn - and they were showing physical sex characteristics (we knew we had one roo and one hen), and their peeps were giving way to clucks. Those two were kept in optimal conditions.

So another couple of weeks and the White Rock will be on the bottom of the ladder.

All in all, a pretty good day on the farm.