The new girls first full day with us

Well, the new girls didn’t go in their little coup at bedtime which wasn’t a surprise to us. I don’t think any of our new girls have ever gone in their coup at bedtime as far as I can remember.

As the main flock were going in the new girls started to get a bit stressed and were looking up for somewhere to go at bedtime. It was obvious that they had had a high perch to roost on before, possibly a barn with high perches. They were constantly looking up and a few times flew into the wire. At one point Silver flew up to the top of the dividing wire.

I decided to pick them up and put them in their little coup. Ginger was the easiest to pick up and I put her in first and she settled down straight away. I then manged to pick up Silver and put her in and she bumped about for a minute and then settled.

I then cleaned the run and opened up half of the run for the new girls in the morning. I lifted out the dividing hatch and closed the gate to the run in the bottom half. I also set up another feeding station in that half of the run. It will mean when the girls are mixed the new girls will know where another feeding station is.

This morning when I let the new girls out they soon explored the bottom part of the run. Silver lead the way and is definitely top girl out of these two. Yesterday she had occasionally given Ginger a gentle peck on the head to let her know she was top girl.

Ginger seems to spend most of her time in the food dish but I am happy with that as it’s a good sign. She was very quick to find the new feeding station.

I am wondering if they might settle at the top of the ladder or the branch perch tonight. If so they will be easy to lift down from there.

In other news Snow is now moulting. I had been finding long tail and wing feathers from her in recent days but today the run was an explosion of white feathers. This means she will have finished egg laying for this year.

I am now thinking that the broody spells leading to early moults may work in our favour to get the new girls integrated more quickly. Red is now the only girl still laying. If she goes broody at the end of her “clutch” that may also trigger her to moult. If this happens that will be the end of egg laying for the main flock for this year.

That would mean that I could put all the girls on growers pellets and start integrating the new girls. It was obvious today that Silver really wanted to join the big girls. She was patrolling the dividing wire this morning. Meanwhile Ginger was at the food dish.

Red laid eight eggs before going broody last time and has already laid seven eggs this time so will probably go broody soon. So my plan is to get the new girls used to the whole run as soon as possible. Tomorrow I will switch the main flock and the new girls to the opposite sides of the run to get them used to the other side.

I think this may be a faster integration than I first thought which would be good.