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.
