i left them out

It was really more of a time and busy-ness issue than a conscious decision. Melanie was all for letting them roam and we decided that if someone showed intense fear we would certainly put them away.



(see her there under the chair?)

Or if they started jumping on tables. Which they actually did. WHAT?? They all of a sudden became little social butterflies scavenging around under people's feet, hoping for teensy crumbs of cheese and beet dip and crudite. Which everyone seemed to think was great fun, or least sufficiently novel, until the jumping on the tables. I didn't even know they could jump that high. Luckily that didn't happen until just about dinner time which was when they needed to go into their coop anyway.

Funny times with farm animals at a party. Though really, the women were in general pretty excited about seeing chickens roaming about. Nice call everyone! Thanks for your advice.

Even though I kind of knew what you were going to say.

More pics soon. I was mostly incapacitated from exhaustion for the rest of the weekend so I haven't gotten around to sifting through the photos.