Chickens in our yard

So, it turns out that I may not be cut out to be a meat farmer.  I didn't really think I was, but the amount I am worrying about these four pullets (I think that is what you would call adolescent hens) may be an indication that a few egg laying hens and perhaps some bunnies(for wool, not meat)  are about as far as I can go.  We have been talking about getting the chicks out, but the chicken coop had just a few minor things that needed fixing, and we didn't know how to fix it, and then it got colder, and the chicks were huge pooping machines who would fling their bedding everywhere and I would have to clean out their water five times a day because it would be full of wood shavings and poop and our upstairs bathroom is totally trashed....and one chick(I changed her name from Thisbe to Goneril) was, I think, trying to establish dominance over the mysterious hand that came in to remove poopy bedding and would rush over to attack it, and it was just getting less than fun.  And then today, I decided to give them some grubs in their upstairs cage, to see if they would care to eat those.  They did not, and according to Elsa, when one of the grubs moved a little bit, they completely freaked out, spilling their water all over their cage, which had no wood shavings in it because they kick them all out and into their water.   And the cage smelled very bad, and I was done and just decided to move them out into their coop.

And so, despite all of the reading and obsessing I have been doing about raising chickens, I kind of hurled them into their chicken arc without really thinking it through.  I think you are supposed to put them in the roost area first, so they know where to go when it gets dark, but I was afraid that they were going to jump out, and I thought they would be happy to play in the grass.  And they were, running around in there en masse, eating lots and lots of clover, suddenly freaking out and lunging at each other, then going back to nonchalantly eating clover, rubbing their beaks on the grass to get rid of the horrible banana I was trying to tempt them with...So, when night fell, they didn't know what to do...they didn't understand my coaxing to go up to the roost, and just huddled below.  I did manage to grab one and fling her up there, but the rest figured out what I was doing and ran away from me and so are down below, and I am worried.  Not only that they will be eaten by a raccoon or something (which totally does worry me) but also that they are cold, and scared, and that  I should have provided a night light and a heating lamp and maybe have taken Jesse up on his offer to sleep out there (perhaps given to calm his neurotic pregnant wife) so he could defend them from all predators.  As well as sing them to sleep...okay, not that part.  But I am anxious and really hoping that they make it through the night and I am sorry if they are frightened and cold.

This is why they had to go....and I swept it out several times a day.

Raising animals is hard, kind of like raising children I suppose.  There has to be a learning curve.  I have never raised chickens before, and I have never raised an almost six year old little girl or a three and a half year old boy...and I just have to pray that my screw-ups don't have the direst consequences.  I hope those girls can stay down there.  I hope I can figure out how to get at them and show them where to go--the chicken arc is a little confusing that way.  I hope nothing eats them tonight.