Updates

After blogging every day about the new girls there hasn’t been so much to say after the first week as things have settled between the new girls and the main flock. The new girls have got more confident around the flock. They have also become much friendlier with me which is lovely.

I have hand fed them spinach which means they now come to my hands to see if I have anything for them. At first they used to move away from the camera but were not bothered if I took photos on my phone. I guess that’s what they have been more used too. But now they are used to my hands they are not bothered by my camera and in fact Ginger comes right up close now, sometimes too close.

They always look so funny straight on and she would have put her beak on the camera if I had let her.

At the end of their first week I decided to close their corner with their little coop and see if they would follow the main flock into the chicken shed. I kept popping up to check on them.

Mango stayed out later than usual and was on the patio area keeping the new girls away. Once all the main flock were in I decided to put Silver in as she is the braver one. I perched her next to Red as Red is usually the least aggressive. It was awful. Red pecked Silver’s head mercilessly. Silver cried out each time and then jumped down and left the chicken shed. I opened up the new girls’ corner and both Silver and Ginger rushed into their little coup.

This is why I haven’t tried mixing them at bedtime again. I feel that Silver and Ginger would soon get the hang of it but it’s the other girls that won’t let them at the moment. We need to wait until they are older and more able to stand up to the other girls.

Red, Storm, Snow and Gold always perch on the back perch and Mango and Cloud always perch on the side perch. I now think that this may have been the reason Mango and Cloud liked me to put them in. They were the bottom girls and probably got similar treatment. Now they have learned to perch on the side perch away from the other girls. But this means that if the new girls perch on the side perch they would be at the mercy of Mango and Cloud who being the previous bottom girls are now the worse aggressors to the new girls.

It has always worked out in the end before so I have decided for now to just leave things as they are and give it more time.

In other news Red is now moulting. She is leaving heaps of feathers especially when she has had a dust bath.

This is actually good timing because that means she is probably finished laying and it makes easier to keep the whole flock on growers pellets.

Snow is the only girl still laying. She has laid five eggs since her last broody spell so is half way through the amount she lays before going broody again. I plan to leave her broody this time round so that she will probably finish her moult and also finish laying.

We had Snow’s eggs for breakfast this morning and I was pleased that they had good, hard, shells so she seems to be doing okay on the growers. I am giving yogurt once a week at the moment to give her some calcium. And that is all the latest news from the chicken run.