This may be a crazy idea

Today we had heavy rain and then later in the afternoon a hail shower. I worry about the new girls being cold and about them not having a very big dry area. Apricot spends a lot of time in the little coup. She only seems to come out to eat and drink. Dandelion spent some time sat on or near the ramp today. Cinnamon seems totally unfazed and uses all the space.

I thought the best thing to do would be to speed up integration, so that the new girls have more dry and sheltered areas and access to the big shed, but when I got home at lunch time I saw that Rusty had blood on her comb at the base of her beak. Rusty spent time this afternoon up against the wire with Cinnamon. The wire is double but because these girls are so small I think they managed to get a tiny beak through. Maybe speeding up integration isn’t such a good idea.

I then came up with the idea of making another shelter, for the new girls area. I thought I could use the dog crate and some tarpaulin we had in the shed, to cover three sides and the top, then fill the tray with pine shavings. I lined the metal tray with cardboard to make it warmer. It doesn’t look very attractive but that doesn’t matter.

It may be a crazy idea, because the new girls may not want to go in it, but I thought that there was nothing to lose by giving it a try.

The new shelter

I bought the tarpaulin a few years ago, thinking that it was clear, but it has these squares running through it. It blocked too much light to use it over the run but we kept it in case it came in handy for something else. I attached it with garden wire.

The shelter in place near the little coop

By the time I had finished, it was almost the girls bedtime, so I decided to encourage the girls to try it tomorrow. However Apricot came out of the little coop and showed some interest in the shelter.

Apricot has a look at the shelter

I scooped her up and popped her in it. She immediately popped straight back out.

I put her in but she was straight back out

Oh well, it’s early days. Soon after this Apricot went back in the little coop so I put the other two in with her for the night.

It would be really good if the new girls would hang out in the shelter on cold or wet days but I am not holding my breath. Chickens don’t do what we want them to do. There is nothing to lose though, by giving it a try, so we will see what happens tomorrow.

I know the original flock would be straight in there for a scratch around but of course that doesn’t mean they would hang out in there during bad weather either.