New Chickens Meet Old Chickens: Getting Acquainted is HARD!

October 2: For the last three weeks the four little hens (Angitou, Emily, Maran, and Carmen Maranda) have been living in a corner of the big coop that I fenced off so the flock could see them and get used to them to minimize fighting once they all got mixed together. Today was a double milestone day: I opened the gate to let the chickens out into the big new half-acre run and also made a small hole in the fence separating the young hens from the big coop, so they could climb through and go into the big coop whenever they were ready. Things started out pretty well. The entire flock went into the big new run and had the time of their lives nibbling on ferns and scratching through the leaf litter on the ground for bugs and worms. So, the coop was empty and the four young hens went through the hole in the fence and cautiously explored. The only chicken left in the coop was Snowball and while he was very interested in the new chickens he stood to one side and did not interact. Then it started to rain - the whole flock came inside to discover four interlopers in their coop. There was a lot of pecking, some of it aggressive. Even though Maran and Carmen, the two "baby" Marans, are as big as, or larger, than the old hens they did not fight back, sadly - so the old hens kept after them. Angitou, the little Polish hen, seemed to get the brunt of the hostility, with a lot of hens ganging up on her and pulling out her crest feathers. She kept trying to crawl under the Marans to hide. Emily, the little Silkie hen, hunched up in a corner, and for the most part was ignored. As of a few minutes ago all four young hens have crawled back through the hole and into their own territory and the old hens have gone back to eating, scratching, and nesting. There's nothing to prevent the old hens from going through the hole and invading the young hens' space, but I'm not going to close the hole since everybody has to get together and get along sooner or later. Once the new pecking order is firmly established, things will calm down again.

October 5:  I just had a prison break. The new run is surrounded by four feet of wire fencing which is topped by four more feet of netting. But there are spots where I don't have the netting up yet—a fact the chickens discovered sometime while I was in the house eating dinner. There were ten chickens on the loose including the two roosters. Kathy and I opened the gate & chased them around thru the woods until they finally went in and then I did a count and everybody's there. Fortunately, everybody sort of stayed together and they didn't want to get too far away from their home, but herding chickens is a lot like herding cats - the whole concept behind herding is that the animal you are herding is afraid of you and will run away. When I yell & wave my arms at the chickens they just cock their heads quizzically and cluck at me.

October 8:  Tomorrow, it will have been one week since I moved the young hens in with the rest of the flock. Things are not perfect. The two Marans are moving out of their little corner on a regular basis now, moving around the coop, and occasionally even venturing outside into the run. Little Angitou the Polish hen, though, is still having issues and continues to be at the wrong end of a lot of aggressive pecking by pretty much the whole flock. The obvious reason for this is that she’s not engaging in proper chicken etiquette. She bumbles through the coop, bumping into other chickens, who then peck her. Then she gets freaked out and caroms around off the walls and other chickens, which results in more pecking, and eventually she winds up lying on the floor with her head buried in a corner. Yesterday, she actually wound up outside in a corner of the run and her two Maran buddies finally went out and sat with her and coaxed her back into the coop.

I began to wonder a couple of nights ago if maybe the reason she acts the way she does is due to an inability to see well because of the huge crest that droops down off her head and across her face. Perhaps her behavior would improve if she could see better. So, then the question was, how advisable was it to cut feathers from around her eyes to improve her vision. A little on-line research convinced me that I was on the right track. Even the Polish Breeders Association suggested removing some feathers from the sight lines of non-show birds.

So tonight, Kathy and I brought a pair of scissors down to the coop and gave Angitou a hair…um feather cut. She obviously is seeing better afterwards. The jury is still out on how this will affect her interaction with the rest of the flock, but I am really hopeful.

Meanwhile, everybody continues to molt and egg count is way down because of that, and Buffy the Buff Orpington has gone broody – she only comes out of her nest box for a few minutes each day to eat and drink, and growls at me when I collect the eggs from her nest box. I HAVE put golf balls in her nest and she’s bound and determined to hatch them. Life in the coop continues to be an on-going soap opera.

Broody Buffy

Angitou's Haircut

October 10:  Ah, broodiness!  I've put Buffy in a broody crate.  I hope this will make her see the error of her ways!

Buffy in Prison

October 11:  The four little hens are slowly making themselves at home in the coop with the old chickens. They actually found their way out to the big run yesterday and spent the day scratching and pecking in the sunshine. They are keeping separate from the rest of the flock - they're still nervous around the old hens and make up the very bottom of the pecking order - but they stay together in their own little group; the two lumbering Marans, the Golden Polish with her strange haircut, and the fluffy little black Silke. I've dubbed them the Gang of Four.

October 16:  Buffy used her "Get Out of Jail" card today and has rejoined the flock - so far, she's hanging around with the flock in the big run and is showing no desire to hole up in a nest box, so things are looking good for Buffy. On Monday night two of the young hens (Emily & Angitou) were getting beat up on pretty badly by Emile and the mean Barred Rocks, so I pulled them out of the coop and they ended up spending a night sleeping under the tractor in the main part of the pole barn. Tuesday morning before I left for work I closed up the holding pen at the end of the coop & put them back in there. This morning I put everybody back together again - when they can be out in the big run and spread out they seem to do OK - we're taking this a day at a time. I’m not sure where this will end.  Maybe I need a second coop.

Angitou Roosts on the Tractor