The chooks settle in

For the first time since childhood I have some backyard chooks, four of them in fact. They are at the age known as point of lay which is self explanatory I suppose. I collected them from the produce store a week ago using a cat carry box to transport them home and on the way one of them laid an egg so I thought things looked pretty positive. After all why have chooks if they don't give you eggs ? Having bought a DIY chookhouse on the net and paid a couple of guys to build a platform for it and a pen I thought it would be reasonably straightforward however my husband found that there were bits missing and damaged as he was putting the house together so that meant having to make modifications before we could paint it. After consulting my book about chooks I realised that ensuring the chooks comfort was directly linked to egg production so further changes were necessary before we could relax and wait for our eggs. The chooks seemed to approve of their patch of backyard raking and scratching in the dirt but when night came they inspected the house and decided to find somewhere else to sleep. Before we knew what had happened one had flown over the 2m fence and was running around the perimeter of the yard frantic because it was separated from the others with my husband in pursuit in the half dark. Having eventually caught it and closed them all in the house we realised we'd have to clip their wings in the morning to avoid this unwelcome drama happening again. It's been several days since that episode and we've made a few more home improvements and today we had our first egg laid in the nesting box.