The ladies are now strutting their stuff. The speckled sussex turned out to be a welsommer. Agnes is the gold necked hen on the right. She has little pencil marks on her feathers and is a lighter bodied hen than the other ladies. We have been on egg watch but nothing thus far. They love to come out on nice days to check out the yard. We have set the light in the hen house on a timer to extend the days trying to fool them into laying.
The girls are starting to roost on the little perch. They are doing great and the work on the house continues. This portion of our yard contained a grass garden and I decided to put down some bark to give us nice footing through the winter. The bare ground will be the hen yard. The girls aren't coming outside yet. But the ramp was set for spacing configuration.
The older chicks are moving out to the hen house. They were in need of more space and the house was done well enough to move them in. The heat lamp will keep them warm and we have covered the inside vents to keep the temp at 70 degrees now that our nights are dropping into the 40s we don't want them getting chilled. As you can see from the picture the house can along pretty well. Ashley and I spent a weekend finishing it. The front window is recycled as is all the cedar trim. The lower front door opens to for collecting eggs. The window tilts open for additional ventilation. The little door on the lets side will give the girls access to the hen yard.
Our girls are growing and doing great and at three weeks we are seeing feathers. WOW. This was their first trip outside. This was October and we won't have many nice days for them to come out. They loved the grass and stayed safe under a laundry basket while Ashley and I continued to work on the hen house. 
We decided we really wanted to get another chick and got these two at the local feed supply, a speckled sussex and a red laced wyndott. They are three weeks younger than the older girls. We will now have five chicks. We are keeping them nice and warm lowering the temp in the brood box by 10 degrees every week. They are two days old and 90 degrees. I have named them after my two great aunts Mildred and Agnes. 
The door was framed large enough to give us good access to the inside of the house for cleaning. The space below the window will be the egg door, giving us access to girls nest boxes. This is going to be a good location with shade trees. Happy Hens are our goal.
Here is the beginning of the hen house. We started by building a frame. The uprights are pressure treated since the will have contact with the elements. We created enough pitch to allow for the snow that we get in the northwest to slide off. As you can see we framed a window in the front and a side door. There is a gap at the back and front to allow for ventilation. We don't want to cook our girls in the summer.