Turns out chickens aren't very smart.

I let the girls out this evening to see if they could figure out how to get back in their coop at dusk, which chickens are supposed to do. After about an hour of happy pecking in the yard (while I had a glass of wine and soaked my feet in the kiddy pool), they started a low peeping that got increasingly more urgent as the sun went down. They went over to their coop, then came back toward me, then went back to the coop, then came over to me again. If chickens could talk they would definitely have been saying "How the heck do we get back in the coop?" Well, you could go back in the way you came out, but I guess that's too obvious. I herded them over but they still couldn't figure out how to get in (and I have to say, in their defense, that the coop is backed up against some bushes so the door is kind of hidden; but they could have gone through the top, too, which was wide open...) Anyway, I was getting tired of the game, so I caught them all one by one and put them in. I wonder if they would have ever figured it out?

Dolley, the barred rock, is so tame that I can carry her around and pet her now. The other two are little more jumpy. I think Martha Washington, the golden-laced Wyandotte, is the dominant chicken, though it's hard to say. She keeps ruffling her feathers like you would think a dominant hen would do.

By the way, I have now informed all of my neighbors about the chicken project. Three of them were enthusiastic and one said "yuck," but I think she's coming around. (Interestingly, all of my neighbors are single women. Not that that has anything to do with chickens.)