Hello,
We have a suburban backyard flock of 6 hens. 4 are 2.5 years old, 2 Easter egger, 1 polish, 1 Wyandotte, and 2 4 month old silkie/Cochin mixes. Prior to getting the silkie Pullets a month ago, we have never had pest issues. After 2 weeks of having the silkies, they had lice. I treated...
Hello everyone, following up with an update and question. The two silkie mixes have been integrated with the 4 older hens for almost 3 weeks. We doubled the run from 4x10 to 8x10, as well as added a second door from the coop to the run, so no more bottle neck issue. Things go quite well during...
This makes perfect sense. Thanks for sharing. We have the ability to create a larger square run and are thinking of doing this. My concern with this is as a previous person commented, the bottleneck where the run connects to the coop. Still should be better than what we have now though.
Everyone is being very helpful, thank you so much! I’ll post my big question here again, just in case it got lost on the first page reply.
will take things more slowly as these are the sweetest birds and I don’t want my rush to integrate them, ruin them. Since I posted this morning, I’ve...
I considered this prior to getting them, but they were previously in a flock of 17, also backyard chickens. 13 regular hens and 4 bantams. This made me think they would be just fine with 4 of my hens.
So, if I’m reading your response correctly, in the video I posted, the hen was in a bullying mode. The pulley had shown submission but the hen kept going. There’s no blood but should I still intervene when I see it “go this far”? The poor pulley stayed in that ending position for 6 minutes.
Thanks all for the responses so far. I will take things more slowly as these are the sweetest birds and I don’t want my rush to integrate them, ruin them. Since I posted this morning, I’ve changed the extended run. I added a partition that has metal bars with about 1” space (from an old rabbit...
Hi all,
I have 4 2-yo hens. I just got 2 3-month old bantam hens (Cochin/silkie mix, pure white, one with red face, one with black face). We keep them separated during the day. At night, the little girls sleep in the coop with the big girls, and all is fine. I had been waking up at 615am each...
@Ridgerunner hi there, I was just wondering how integration of the two silkies has gone? We just got two Cochin/silkie pullets, and have 4 2 year old hens. Curious if you have an update and any tips? Thank you!
Thanks for the reply! To answer your question, no, that is not a normal pile of treats. It was the result of carving 3 pumpkins and I just set it out for them to see peck at. They stayed at that bowl for less than a minute before moving on. I will do a half of butternut squash one day and the...
What’s the best way to help hens gain weight? I have 6 girls, all 19 months old. 5 of the 6 are molting, some 3-4 weeks in and some just starting. I haven’t weighed all the birds, but I know they are thin (can feel their breastbone very easily) and the ones I’ve weighed are down about 3-400...