I finished the brooder today, and the chicks will be moving out to it tomorrow afternoon.

I got a good start on the field house. I'm using this design. Cerra helped me put the 2x4 base together: I drilled and she fetched the screws and put them in the holes. Then I screwed them in. I think it actually took less time with her helping than it would have alone. I got a third of the conduit pieces cut, but it was an arduous task because I didn't have the right kind of hacksaw blade. I picked up some better ones at Lowes, so hopefully it will go faster next time. I estimate that this pen will be done by the end of next week, which should give me plenty of time to build a second one for the broilers before they need to go to pasture.

We tried taking Balto out to the land with us today, but it didn't work out too well. Paul thought that Balto could be trusted to roam around the pasture, even without a fence, but he quickly proved that to be wrong by running into the road. We put him in the fenced garden area, but he immediately made a nuisance of himself by standing in the planted spots (probably less than 100 square feet out of a third of an acre) and refusing to move. So he spent the rest of the time tied up in the corner. So much for trustworthiness.