Chickens at Large

On a nice warm sunny weekend in October we set the chickens loose in the back yard. They were sooooo happy. They scampered around from one end of the yard to the other, and pecked away with pleasure. They tended to congregate near the gate into the side yard. We are not sure why, but  our theory is that there  must be some tasty morsels there. They tend to scavenge about as a pack. The rooster sticks close and occasionally puffs up his feathers and antagonizes one of the hens, but generally they leave each other alone. I was worried about getting them back into their chicken tractor, but as the afternoon drew to a close, they made their way back in by themselves. A couple of them ran around the outside a few times, confused as to where the entrance was, but eventually they found it and hopped inside. Then I tucked them in for the night.