The saga continues...
Now that we were officially chicken owners, the kids and I quickly decided we needed more. Although Chelsea and Molly were each faithfully laying an egg a day, we had to wait several days in order for breakfast to be entirely our own eggs. I got a lead on a trio of lf salmon faverolles, which of course I had never heard of so DD and I Googled the breed. We read that they were docile, to the point of putting themselves at the bottom of the pecking order. That sounded like just what we needed, since it would mean adding another rooster to the 2 we had now.
We had moved Charley and his cuties out from under the playhouse and set up the 12x12 dog pen with the double nesting box my DH built in it. We covered it with chicken wire and blue tarps. We brought the new birds home and introduced Bif and his beauties, Martha and Bertha, to Charley and his cuties. (and Chuck) It was not a pretty sight....Bif, much larger and sporting quite a hefty spur, and Charley, smaller with no spur to date, immediately tore into each other. I had hoped that they would settle down soon, but it was not to be. Finally, for his own safety, we isolated Charley in the pen under the playhouse, and spent the night contemplating our next move. Fortunately, the dog pen could be divided into 2 6x12 runs, so we now had 2 mini-flocks. The only problem was that being joined, the two runs did not allow any separation for the two fighting cocks. They still fought each other through the chain link fence. So DH had to put a tarp along the entire length. Now they could not see each other and are both content each in his own little fiefdom.
We later read that while the faverolles are docile to their humans, the roosters are aggressive to other roosters. Now they tell me. Oh, well, peace has been achieved. And we are now getting 4 eggs almost every day.
End of stage two.
We had moved Charley and his cuties out from under the playhouse and set up the 12x12 dog pen with the double nesting box my DH built in it. We covered it with chicken wire and blue tarps. We brought the new birds home and introduced Bif and his beauties, Martha and Bertha, to Charley and his cuties. (and Chuck) It was not a pretty sight....Bif, much larger and sporting quite a hefty spur, and Charley, smaller with no spur to date, immediately tore into each other. I had hoped that they would settle down soon, but it was not to be. Finally, for his own safety, we isolated Charley in the pen under the playhouse, and spent the night contemplating our next move. Fortunately, the dog pen could be divided into 2 6x12 runs, so we now had 2 mini-flocks. The only problem was that being joined, the two runs did not allow any separation for the two fighting cocks. They still fought each other through the chain link fence. So DH had to put a tarp along the entire length. Now they could not see each other and are both content each in his own little fiefdom.
We later read that while the faverolles are docile to their humans, the roosters are aggressive to other roosters. Now they tell me. Oh, well, peace has been achieved. And we are now getting 4 eggs almost every day.
End of stage two.
