Carol's Chickens

I had a bit of time yesterday afternoon so I spent a couple of hours in with the chickens. At first I closed off the bottom half of the run by closing the hatch and the new gate and mixed the girls together. I soon realised that this wasn’t a good idea. With less space for the new girls to run they kept getting trapped in a corner.

Cinnamon and Dandelion in the corner and Apricot has gone behind the shelter

I don’t know if missing, mixing them yesterday set them back, or if it was the smaller space, but Rusty was back in full on fight mode. She went for Apricot and tried to pin her down and pulled a beak full of feathers from her back. This was no good at all. She just wouldn’t leave her alone.

I quickly shut the main flock in the new girl’s section and left the new girls on their own in the now smaller section so that they could get more familiar with the patio area. I ushered them towards the patio.

Dandelion and Cinnamon finally discovered the food was here

They spent the longest time yet on the patio, feeding and preening. This is a small step forward. Dandelion looks headless with her head in the dish but all the other photos had one or other of them blurred.

As usual these girls make the most of a dust bath in this area

Apricot’s close up

Three girls in a row

At this stage I decided to shut Rusty and Freckles in the bottom part of the run and let the bigger girls mix with the new girls. For a while it was only Emerald in with the new girls as the rest were still enjoying their dust bath.

Emerald takes no notice of Apricot

Emerald and Apricot were scratching and pecking next to each other with no problem at all.

Rusty and Freckles are in chicken jail

They are all fine as long as they are separated by the wire but all hell lets loose once they are together. I can’t believe the only shot of this has Dandelion headless again, preening this time.

It’s Emerald’s turn in the dust bath

The rest of the big girls left the dust bath and Emerald decided it was her turn. She reminds me of a duck on water in this photo.

Dandelion and Cinnamon are fine with Emerald too

Emerald is top girl and has no need to throw her weight about. She is fine with the new girls. What is it with the headless shots, now it’s Emeralds turn!

Cinnamon discovers the log

Dandelion is soon beside her

Everything was fine as long as Rusty and Freckles were out of the equation. I let Rusty and Freckles out of jail and Rusty went straight after the new girls again. I decided that was enough for one day and separated them.

The thing that seems crazy is that if we were just mixing the little girls with the bigger girls there would be no problem. I would feel confident mixing them now. It’s Rusty and Freckles that are slowing this whole process down. I got it totally wrong when I first thought that they would probably mix first.

I should have known from the past that it is always the bottom girls that cause the most mayhem and I now realise that it doesn’t matter about the size. I wonder if Rusty is ever going to allow the new girls to mix.

I am guessing that we will get there eventually but that it is going to take a long time. I thought that in the future I would probably always add seramas to my flock but I am now wondering if that would always make it this difficult. Time will tell.

We have solid corrugated plastic roof over the patio area of the run, tarpaulin over the top of the triangular part because it’s an awkward shape and opening panels underneath all the straight parts of the run. However we have been disappointed by how wet the run gets in some parts due to water leaking through.

During recent wet weather I felt the new girls didn’t have enough dry space in their area so I put plastic sheeting under the panels as a temporary measure which has helped a lot. We have been thinking of ways to improve it and decided that we would like to have corrugated plastic over the top of half of the run, length ways, overhanging the end parts to take water out into the garden instead of into the end of the run.

My husband suggested covering the entire run but I want to be able to open half of it during sunny weather to help keep it cool and to give the girls some direct sunlight to sit in. We asked our neighbour, who is an all round handy man, if he could do the job for us and yesterday he got the job done.

We are really pleased with the results. This should keep three quarters of the run properly dry, the newly covered half plus the tarpaulin covered triangular part. With both sides open and half the length with panels being opened it should be cool enough on hot days. It is lighter and brighter and the integrating part for new girls should now stay completely dry.

It’s difficult to show what we have done so I have just taken one photograph from outside.

The run now has solid roof over half length ways

Looking in this direction the left half is covered in solid roof. It doesn’t show up much but the plastic runs out beyond the run into the garden, a few inches beyond the wood at the top. The part that the new girls are in is also roofed like this and again it extends beyond the run into the garden.

We are really pleased with this improvement and hopeful that the run will stay much drier. I am especially pleased that the new girl’s part will stay dry not only for them but for any future integrations.

My husband also had another great idea. While we have been mixing the girls it has been a bit of a problem that the original flock stay mostly in the top part of the run and the new girls stay at the bottom end of the run out of the way thus slowing the integration process.

My husband suggested we could use the screen that I bought a while back. My idea was to use it to contain the seramas to the covered patio area in bad weather, but it didn’t work out at all. He suggested we could use it as a temporary gate to the newer part of the run and close the hatch, then the new girls would have to mix in the top half of the run.

I tried it but with the feet that it had the little girls could squeeze underneath so my husband sawed off the feet. This meant I could push it into the ground so that there is no gap underneath.

New gate closed

New gate open

This will just be in use temporarily while we are integrating and then it can be stored back in the shed for future use. We feel that the new girls won’t fly over it and it will be enough to keep them to this part of the run where they will have to mix and maybe even discover the patio area.

I felt quite pleased that after buying this it will now have a use after all. What a great idea.

After all the works on the run yesterday it was too late to do any mixing but today I will try out the new gate. I am pleased with both these improvements. This run is forever evolving.

At bedtime I now wait for the new girls to go in at about quarter past six and then close the little coop. Last night Cinnamon had mastered the art of jumping on the little coop roof so that’s all three of them now able to do this.

I was just cleaning their feeding station while waiting for them to go in when Apricot jumped on to my shoulder. I was so surprised. I had never expected to have a serama jump on me. She was chatting away in my ear. I offered her the coop roof by tipping my shoulder so that could dismount but she stayed put.

Eventually I stooped down low so that she could jump down and she then went to bed. I have to say I felt quite elated at having a serama on my shoulder. Who would have thought It! They are full of surprises.

It’s that time of year again. I worm the girls twice a year, in March and September. I thought it best to do this while the new girls are separated as it makes it easier to be sure they get their share.

I worm the main flock by mixing the flubenvet powder with fish as this means  that they all get their share. The new girls haven’t yet tried fish but they like mash so I decided to mix theirs in a little dish of mash and remove the dish of pellets. When the mash is all gone I will replace the pellets.

Dandelion and Cinnamon keep Apricot away from the food dish. She has to eat when they have moved away so I made up two dishes and gave Apricot hers on the top of the little coop. She is used to me helping her to get her share so this worked like a dream.

Apricot gets a dish to herself

Dandelion has some

Cinnamon has some

I do the same thing with Rusty and Freckles to be sure that they get their share.

Rusty and Freckles have their own dish

It all happens so quickly that I didn’t get a shot of them actually eating theirs. This was because I was trying fend off Emerald who obviously thought their dish must be better than hers.

The rest of the girls have their dishes on the patio

Freckles has now joined the main flock but that’s fine. Emerald is still trying to see if the dish on top of the little coop is a better dish but that’s fine too. At this point I put the other dish on the patio too. As long as I can see that all the girls have had some that is all that matters. I may not need to give Rusty and Freckles theirs separately from now on as they are probably able to get their share.

This regime will continue for seven consecutive days.

Yesterday by the time we had finished our work and I mixed the girls it was too near bedtime to have any useful effect. The original flock stuck close to the patio area as they knew it was near to the time when they have bedtime corn and the new girls kept away at the far end of the run.

It was frustrating because I could see that it wouldn’t move on the integration process if the girls stayed at opposite ends of the run. I decided to give up and try to finish earlier today.

I had an idea this morning to try to make the new girls aware of the chicken shed and patio area. At seven o’clock I shut the main flock in the part of the run beyond the hatch. Then I opened the little coop into the cat box and closed the three girls inside it . I then set the cat box down inside the chicken shed and opened it, shutting the shed door so that they would have to discover the pop hole.

Cinnamon and Dandelion were straight out of the pop hole and left the patio area swiftly. Apricot took her time and pecked around the pop hole before making her exit too.

The newbies soon find the pop hole

Where am I?

Are you looking at me?

Apricot isn’t in such a hurry to leave as Cinnamon and Dandelion

They didn’t pause long enough to discover that this is where the food and water is but I hoped that it might help them to recognise the patio and the chicken shed in future.

I let the other girls out and gave them five minutes together and then separated them again as I needed to get on with my day.

This afternoon I mixed the girls again. The  bigger girls are not too bad but Rusty and Freckles, mostly Rusty, still chase them and they once again end up at the bottom of the run. Before ending up at the bottom of the run Rusty and Apricot, or Rusty and Cinnamon, ran round the circle of the two parts of the run like, as my husband put it, scalextric cars. They must be getting plenty of exercise as the speed of these little girls is incredible.

My husband then had an idea to try to get them to know each other better. He suggested we hold Rusty and Apricot facing each other but just out of beaks reach and let them get better acquainted. He said we should let them do a bit of chicken whispering.

I held Apricot while he held Rusty and I talked to them in a calm voice telling them that everything was okay and they could be fine together if they could be good girls. We then set them down on the patio and Apricot legged it.

Next I handed my husband Cinnamon and I held Freckles and we repeated the procedure. Once on the patio Cinnamon legged it.

It did seem like there was less attacking after this though and it was just chasing or the death stare from Rusty or she would look nonchalant as if she hadn’t noticed them.

Peaches and Barley have discovered that they can reach some green leaves from here

Apricot spends most of her time up here out of harms way

These two stick very close together

I got the girls back to their respective parts of the run and Apricot showed another new trick.

Apricot is now happy to scratch and peck in the shelter

I am pleased that she is now comfortable with being in here but I am aware that it doesn’t necessarily mean she would go in there on cold and windy days. It does give her the option though if she wanted to.

I think things are getting a little better but there is still a long way to go. This is going to be a long integration process compared with past integrations. However we are not on a time limit so it can just take it’s time.

This weekend we have a function on Saturday, an afternoon tea on Sunday, plus loads of lunches to prepare for Monday. It’s going to be a full on working weekend so it won’t be until the following weekend that I will have time to spend trying to move things on a bit further.

By next weekend we will have had the new girls a month. Will they be more ready to mix by then? Only time will tell. We will continue with small steps, a bit at a time.

Yesterday afternoon I mixed the girls and it went better than the day before. Now that Apricot has accepted that her place is below Rusty, she runs away from her, if Rusty looks at her or moves towards her. This is much better than the fights they were having on the first few days.

The other step forward is that Cinnamon has now learned to perch. She had been on the bottom rung of the ladder a few times and when Rusty chased her she went up the ladder like Apricot does. This is good because it gives her another escape route. We just need Dandelion to discover this now.

If Cinnamon and Dandelion get separated during the chasing Dandelion cries until she finds Cinnamon again. These two are now most definitely bonded with each other. They are always together whereas Apricot is often on her own, perching at the other end of the run. I feel a bit sorry for her, always sitting on her own and think it would be really good for her to be with the rest of the flock.

I think that what we need next is for Cinnamon and Dandelion to brave the patio and discover that this is the feeding station. Until they discover this they aren’t feeding while the girls are mixed which is why I am keeping their times together fairly short at the moment. It would be no good having dishes in the run because the pellets would end up in the dirt and the dirt would end up in the dishes. The patio area has always been the perfect feeding station and we have never had girls that have been adverse to stepping foot on it before. I don’t know why these two are so reluctant to go there. They also need to get used to it as the nest boxes and chicken shed are there.

Apricot has sussed the patio and is fine with it. Dandelion and Cinnamon are slower to cotton on to new things and are more nervous than she is.

Apricot is getting very brave

Emerald is scratching in the shelter

Most of the bigger girls like to scratch in here but I haven’t seen Rusty or Freckles go in here yet. The bigger girls like to get on top of it too.

Peaches and Barley make the most of their favourite dust bathing spot again

The main flock seem to love getting into the other side of the run. It would be so good to get the girls together but the patio needs to be conquered next and then getting them all to sleep together is going to be a future nightmare.  For now it’s just a case of taking it one step at a time.

Yesterday afternoon all of the little girls and Speckles were having a dust bath. Barley and Emerald were in the nest box and later both laid an egg and Peaches was in the little coop doorway supervising.

All the little girls and Speckles having a dust bath

Cinnamon and Dandelion were dust bathing behind the feeding station.

Apricot, on the other side of the wire, has almost disappeared

Apricot, not looking quite so …. Apricot!

My husband remarked that you would think she would never come clean again. One good shake though and she returns back to normal. I do love to see a good dust bathing session. Dust bathing girls are happy girls.

I used different tactics today. I decided that I won’t be switching the girls to different sides any more as I feel the new girls have learned all they need to about the other side of the run for now. They haven’t got as far as the chicken shed but that doesn’t matter at the moment.

We have some friends visiting this afternoon and staying for a bite to eat so I decided to give the girls some time together in the morning instead of the afternoon. This time I just closed the little coop and moved the food and water dish to the patio. I then opened the gates but also opened the corners of the wire at the end of the run and at the edge of the patio to allow some extra escape routes.

Once again the bigger girls didn’t take too much notice but Rusty and Freckles went for the new girls. My cute little Rusty has turned into a horror! She is by far the worse culprit. This time Apricot ran away and went straight to the top of the ladder. She has her escape sussed now and then just sits it out.

Poor little Cinnamon came off the worse. All that ruff raising behind the wire was forgotten in an instant. Rusty chased Cinnamon round and round the run at break neck speed. Too fast for any chance of photos.

I decided ten minutes of this was enough and separated the run areas again. The new girls are easy to get back to their part as that’s where they feel safe. I rewarded them with a dish of mash.

As I have no photos of the girls today I thought I would take one of some spring flowers in the garden.

Spring flowers

The garden is now bursting with patches of spring colour.

I now realise that adding seramas to the bigger girls is the easy part. The bigger girls give them a token peck in passing to show them their place and the little girls accept this. It’s the same size girls that are the problem. Rusty is determined that she is going to be top serama girl and is brutal at showing them this.

This is going take some time.

When I got back from my lunch deliveries I checked the nest box and found what looked like egg yolk in the pine shavings. I then found half of a soft shell (big sized) on the patio. I soon realised it must have been from Speckles as she was looking miserable and had streaks of white on her bottom feathers.

This is her fourth egg this year. I don’t know why it should be soft shelled as the girls aren’t having any extra treats. She hasn’t laid one like this before so I hope it’s just a blip. I always worry that there may be some egg shell left behind but she perked up as the day went on so hopefully the other half just got eaten. I will add some crushed, baked, egg shells to their mash tomorrow.

After lunch, I did the usual switching of the flocks, to the other side of the run. I tried to encourage Dandelion and Cinnamon to go to the patio for the food. They didn’t quite get that far, but by moving the mash from the run to the bottom step and then to the top step, I managed to get them as far as the top step (wooden block). It’s a bit of progress.

At three o’clock in the afternoon I decided to mix them early instead of waiting until before bedtime. Freckles had been going up and down the wire and I thought she wanted to get to the new girls. I opened up all the gates and Freckles ran at speed to the patio, ran straight to the nest box, up the ramp and settled in. I felt awful that while I thought she wanted to get to the other girls all she really wanted was to get to the nest box.

Within about ten minutes she had laid her egg. Because she has been laying every other day and had laid yesterday, I hadn’t expected her to lay today. I had closed the new girl’s coop to stop the bigger girls throwing the shavings out. That’s two days running that she has laid. I had thought that seramas didn’t lay that well but she is proving to be a good little layer. We now have two little eggs each for Sunday breakfast.

At least that took Freckles out of the equation to start with. Rusty was still eating mash on top of the little coop roof so didn’t seem to notice the gates were open.

I put the girls together

They don’t seem to have noticed

The bigger girls all go to the top of the wooden table/shelter

The bigger girls seemed more interested in checking out the new girl’s dishes, in case they had something different to them, which of course they didn’t and getting back to the wooden table which they had been deprived of for a couple of hours. Rusty finally came out of the new girl’s section and joined the bigger girls.

Rusty joins them but is inside the shelter

Rusty inside the shelter

The new girls are here

Freckles is in here

We decided to move the new girls towards the rest of the flock so that they could interact rather than staying totally separate. We felt it would be best to get it over and done with.

Emerald didn’t take much notice

The bigger girls and Freckles were busy at the food and water

It was only when Rusty suddenly saw that Apricot was near by that it kicked off. Rusty went for her but the difference this time was that Apricot ran rather than fight. They bowled around the run at such speed that no photos were possible. Rusty managed to pull a few feathers from Apricot’s back. Apricot ran to the ladder and up to the high perch.

Apricot can now get to the high perch

Clever girl

When Freckles came out of the nest box she went after Cinnamon but Cinnamon went into the submissive posture and then escaped. The bigger girls landed a few token pecks but nothing too nasty. I decided this was enough for today and got the girls back to their areas.

I felt this had gone much better though. I think it helped doing it earlier with no corn involved as treats cause more bullying. I think that once Rusty has established that she is above Apricot and equally Apricot accepts that she is below Rusty, things will settle down.

The bigger girls have no need to worry about their position in the pecking order and therefore are not so aggressive. I think that the first time Rusty and Apricot got together the problem was that neither wanted to back down which made for a brutal encounter.

I am now much more optimistic that they will settle soon. Once I open up more escape routes it will make it easier for the new girls to get out of the way. One thing that is certain is that they have speed on their side. I am feeling much happier with the progress today.

Freckles laid her fifth egg this morning, she is our best layer at the moment. I thought Emerald was getting ready to lay as her comb is now a lovely red colour and she has become more vocal. She was also looking in the nest box.

A little later this morning I heard some shouting and when I inspected Emerald was just coming out of the nest box with a little heap of pine shavings on her back. There was her warm, first egg, of the year. It is also another long egg. It seems that most of the bigger girls are laying a, long shaped, first egg.

Well done Emerald. This is five days earlier than last year.

Emerald’s first egg

A medium, shop bought, egg on the left for comparison, Emerald’s egg next and three of Freckles eggs on the right. If Freckles lays again on Saturday we will have two little eggs each for Sunday breakfast.

Emerald’s egg on the egg stand

After lunch I switched the girls to opposites sides again. Peaches and Barley enjoyed having their favourite dust bathing spot back.

Peaches and Barley dust bath on the other side of the run

The new girls perch

These three are a definite pair and an odd one. Apricot likes to perch on the ladders. The other two haven’t yet discovered that they can perch but are taking the in between step of sitting on the log.

I managed to lure Apricot to the patio area with some spinach. She has got the hang of jumping on to the wooden block and up to the patio. My husband suggested putting their own, familiar food and water dishes there so that they recognise them as they haven’t sussed out the bigger ones yet. April had some water.

Apricot has got it sorted

Dandelion and Cinnamon were watching Apricot but couldn’t seem to work out how to get up to the patio. I lifted Cinnamon to the patio and put her next to the food dish. She didn’t stay long as they seem to have make there own way there. If I put them there they just want to come back down again.

I put Cinnamon next to the food dish

I decided to make some steps from the other wooden blocks in the run. As a temporary measure this should make it easier for them. I guided Dandelion up the steps.

She does look funny but you have to allow for how much better she will look when her head and neck feathers open.

I have built some steps up to the patio area

She didn’t stay there either and I relented and moved their food and water into the run. They then had a good feed. I can see it is going to take a while to get them used to the patio area.

Just before bedtime I shut the main flock behind the gate on the new girls side and closed the hatch. I used corn to get them in. I then picked up Rusty and Freckles and carried them around, to the triangle part, next to the hatch. I thought this was the easiest way to separate these two.

Then I opened the gate and let the new girls and the bigger girls mix. I had the water spray to hand. There was mayhem and I squirted the bigger girls when they went for the new girls. It was pretty stressful but more like I am used to. The bigger girls attacked and the new girls ran away. This means as long as there are escape routes it’s not too bad.

The difference with the seramas yesterday was that there was no running away or backing down, just full on, brutal attacking. I can see now that the seramas are going to be the tricky ones to mix.

I only allowed about ten minutes of this as it was stressful. I got the new girls through the gate and returned all the areas back to normal. Whew, this is hard work. This is going to take time and patience.

Tomorrow I will continue with trying to get the new girls used to the patio area as the feeding station. I can see that I will need to leave out more food dishes when the girls are mixed but that is okay. I think we made a very small amount of progress today.

This afternoon I switched the girls to the opposite sides of the run. I closed the hatch and put the main flock behind the gate with the help of sunflower seeds. I then let the new girls into the main flock’s side and then opened the hatch.

I closed the new girl’s coop as I knew the main flock would soon scratch all the shavings from it. I put a dish of water and a dish on mash on top of the little coop so that the girls couldn’t fill it with dirt. I used mash instead of pellets so that they wouldn’t get flicked into the dirt.

Both sets of girls seemed to enjoy being in a different area. Peaches soon checked out the new shelter and the main flock reacquainted themselves with the table and perches and also checked out the top of the little coop and the top of the shelter.

The new girls explored most of the run but were very reluctant to go on to the patio. I really wanted them to find the food and water but if I put them on the patio they jumped straight down from it again.

Exploring the other side of the run

Finding the log

Apricot and Dandelion on the log

Apricot

Peaches inspects the shelter

I put Apricot on the patio

Exploring towards the patio area

Getting nearer to the patio

Cinnamon with her little ruff raised

Although Freckles is blurred I kept this photo as it captured Cinnamon with her ruff raised which is something she does a lot to all the main flock members. You would think this would indicate that she is feisty but I know from past experience that it tends to be the one who is going to be at the bottom that does this.

This was just what Speckles was like and once mixed she went straight to the bottom. Cinnamon is the most nervous of the new girls so I am sure she will end up bottom girl. Several times this afternoon she stood on a brick or a log and did this while making herself  appear taller. I didn’t manage to catch a shot though.

Apricot back on the patio

I persuaded Apricot back on to the patio with some spinach but she didn’t stay long enough to find the food and water.

I changed the girls to the opposite sides once more with the evening corn and let the new girls have a fill up on mash. Then I decided to try to Apricot with the main flock. I picked her up and set her down on the other side of the gate.

Oh my goodness, what a mistake. It was awful. Rusty and Apricot were full on fighting. They had hold of each other and were twisting and turning and circling and flapping. It was the most aggression that I have ever seen between two chickens. I sprayed Rusty with water but she wouldn’t let go. I tried to separate them but it was really hard to get hold of them. I managed to grab Rusty and open her beak from Apricot. I held Rusty up high and guided Apricot back through the gate with my foot.

They continued to try to peck at each other through the wire. I kept moving Rusty away but she kept bouncing back. Eventually Apricot made her way to the end of the run and straight up to the top of the ladder.

Apricot at the top of the ladder

A little later everything was back to normal. I was so wrong about the possibility of these two being friends. I think this is going to be a long, hard, slog. I was also wrong about getting the seramas together first. I think it might work better to separate Rusty and Freckles and try the new girls with the bigger girls.

Dave, the breeder, did tell me that seramas can be really aggressive to each other. He was surprised that I hadn’t yet experienced it. I am now beginning to understand what he meant.

Before, during integration, the seramas ran from the bigger girls and got out of the way. There has been ruff raising and directing pecks at each other in the past but I have never seen fighting like this. We are beginning to wonder if they will ever get used to each other.

I am feeling a bit disheartened at the moment. I think it’s going to be a long, slow, process.