We made it!

Whew. First night in the coop. We did go out and check on them just before midnight, but we managed to leave them out there this time and go back to bed. The chickens probably had a blissful, contented night of sleep, but I tossed and turned and had awful dreams of going outside in the morning to find the girls gone and a couple of dogs in the coop, licking their chops. Ugh. So when the sun hit my eyes at about 7, I jumped up and went outside to let them out of the Vault. They seemed utterly normal, as if it was the most natural thing in the world to sleep outdoors in a wooden box built by two very unskilled carpenters.

There is no place for food inside The Vault. We do put their little Mason jar chick waterer in there, and I guess we could do the same with food...we've heard that they don't need food at night since they can't see well anyway and they really just bed down and go to sleep, but I can tell already that I will feel quite guilty about sleeping in and thus depriving them of breakfast. Hmmm...maybe if we're out late, we'll shove a little food in the Vault before we go to bed to buy us an extra hour or two in the morning?

Details, details. I am really starting to envy my friends who have an automatic solar-powered chicken door that lets them out in the morning and puts them to bed at night. But I am determined that my chickens will not have fancier gadgets than I have.