The new bedtime regime

It seems crazy that I hadn’t checked on how the girls come out of the chicken shed before now but the fact is that I knew that they could use the ladder, I have seen them do so, it seems that they just prefer not to.

We have a similar ladder in the run leading up to a high, branch, perch. At certain times of the day it gets the sun and all the girls sit on the rungs of the ladder. I have seen them fly down from the top when the ladder is empty but I have seen them move up and down the ladder while changing positions.

When I poop pick the chicken shed in the mornings I am sometimes accompanied by a few of the girls and as I am in front of the perch they move up and down the ladder.

Last night while jostling for their bedtime position (Butterscotch wanted their space) I watched Peaches and Barley jump from the perch to a rung half way down the ladder and then work their way up to the top.

So I was aware that they could use the ladder and expected them to come down that way in the mornings. I think they just prefer the quicker and more direct route of jumping straight down and once one girl has done this the others all follow suit.

But I do feel happier now that the perch is lower. I also kept it at the same height as the top of the ladder in the hope that this would mean that they would be happy in either position as one is no higher than the other. This is also not the case though. The perch is still preferred to the top rung of the ladder. I can only think that it’s because they all want to be on the same perch and the ladder may be seen as being a bit apart from the perch. Who knows what goes on in those chicken brains!

The current bedtime line up

If you compare this photo to last nights photo you will see that the line up is identical. You would think that they all just take up their places and that this would be an easy routine. Not so! The line up changes during the course of the bedtime routine. Toffee, Emerald and Speckles get chased out a few times. Peaches and Barley take up the position where Butterscotch is in the photo above. Butterscotch always come in half an hour later and because she is bigger, when she takes her place on the perch, Peaches and Barley are forced off and end up on the top rung of the ladder.

My husband asks why, if they always end up in this order, don’t they just accept it and go to their final positions. It’s not that simple. They go where they choose first then get moved and end up where they are now. Peaches and Barley don’t want to end up on the ladder but they have no choice.

Peaches and Barley are above Butterscotch in the pecking order and out in the run they will chase her from a position they want. But at bedtime her bigger size just pushes them out of the way and they can’t hold on to their position so they move over to the ladder.

A close up has to miss Toffee as she is so far over to the left of the perch

Toffee gets pushed around and often forced back out into the run. She then ends up as far away from the rest of the girls as possible, making it difficult to keep her in shot. Speckles also gets forced out but eventually ends up next to Honey as Honey doesn’t see her as a threat to her position in the pecking order and therefore doesn’t bother her.

Peaches and Barley are always together where ever they end up. They are such a tight pair of girls.

I could take this photo night after night and it would look as if the routine is simple but I see all the jostling that goes on leading up to this. This was why we added some extra perches but then I realised that they brought their own problems so the bedtime routine is now back as it was before.

Sometimes we just have to accept that as much as we can do to try to ease things there are some things that we just can’t change. At the end of the day the girls will do what they do and I can’t tell them to use the ladder and I can’t tell them to settle at bedtime without any hassle. This is how they will do things and all I can do is make sure they are safe.