New chickens settling in
The remaining three of our new intake seem to be doing ok – and are already showing themselves to be funny little chicks. Add your own captions/voiceovers for these pics ;)
When I went down first thing, they were running around outside and when I went back after lunch, they were trying out the coop perches (they slept in the nest boxes last night so hopefully they’re building up to perching). Admittedly, I think part of the reason they were up there was to have a break from the others – I was down there for about an hour, only one peck happened but there was certainly some intimidation. But it has also been chuffing cold today so I don’t blame them for heading back inside. (The frost lingered in parts of the garden/woods all day, despite it being pretty sunny, brrr! I thought I’d have to break the ice on the drinkers this morning – as I had to do on the outside dog bowl – but someone with a beak had beat me to it.)
While I know pecking has been taking place, these girls don’t seem to have any visible feather loss. All three of them ate corn out of my hand and while I was in the run, the two Black Rocks stretched their legs outside for a bit and both let me stroke them. As I said yesterday, it took the ISA Browns a week until they’d eat out of ours hands or stroke them/easily pick them up, so the new girls are ahead of the curve in some ways.
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Congrats on the new intake, how many do you have now? my girls will allow me to pick them up but won’t eat from my hand for some reason.
strange ol chickens that they are
Phil
Hi Phil,
It was momentarily up to 8 (we had four and introduced another four) but after the Black Minorca died on Saturday night/Sunday morning, we’re down to seven. The coop can apparently sleep 15 but I think we’ll stick at what we’ve got for now so they have more room in the run.
-louisa :)
such a shame sorry about that, but 7 is still a nice number when it comes to the eggs :D i think 15 would be quite overwhelming and rather messy
I have two older chix , and 3 new 4months olds, they get along fine outside , once in awhile a chase will ensue for a peck by an older chick. I instroduced the chicks to the coop two nights ago and it became a free for all in pecking, like a bar fight!
I took the babes out and back into the pen in the house. Tried again last night and again one of the older chicks began pecking
really nasty, the other older chick started pecking as well but not the babies. I tried calming all down but to no avail, stayed with the chicks for 10 mins and once again removed the babies.
I will bring them back again tonight and try 15 mins of togetherness…any suggestions?? Help , the babies are really to big to continue keeping in the pen in the house.