"Better take them today", said DH.
I got up at 5.30a.m. when the Big Girls started whingeing. I let everyone out, and the Kazooing continued.
We had a few things to do for the morning, so it was about 2pm when we were ready to think about the chicks. We packed the car with their feeders, the bag of feed, the ladder.... Then I put the Big Girls away, with some watermelon, we shut up most of the house, and we set about catching 11 not-well-handled chicks. This took some time.
Much, much later, the 11th chick was in the box. We had 6 in one, and 5 in the other. And we set off.
On arrival, we shut them in their new coop while we got everything else ready. Drinkers cleaned, disinfected, filled; feeders filled; etc etc. After only about 10 mins (it was too hot to leave them an longer), we opened the pop hole and waited for them to come out.
Eventually 7 of them came out and had a looky round. The other 4 had to be chivvied along. They were a bit stressed (of course), so they were panting a bit with that and the heat. They started eating the grass, and after a few minutes, they were running around quite happily.
The two existing flocks were very interested in knowing What Was Going On. The Girls from Henry's flock tried to come in and see the new arrivals - not a good idea. I told Henry and the Girls that these were their babies, conveniently putting aside for a moment the likely parentage of the two brown chicks.
Once we'd seen some of them have a drink, and some of them eat from the feeders, we left them to it.
We'll go back late this evening to make sure that they have been able to get to bed.
