Do Ameraucanas need other Ameraucanas in order to fit in?

donrae said:

* Mental picture of Cynthia out on her steps, patiently moving her hens around for the perfect photo op*

I've honestly never seen this in my flocks. They just seem to buddy up for no reason. Maybe some of it is I have so many mixed breeds...if they're looking for someone that looks just like them, they're outta luck!

Click to expand...

Yeah, that's me, all right.

I have seen this over and over with my flock. The EE hang out together. The SLW hangs out with the Doms. The black girls hang out together, and the brown ones hang out together. Of my original 5, there is a RIR and her minion (Black sex link). The two of them were inseperable. However, the BSL has left her long time BFF to hang out with this years BSL pullets. Roo flanks himself with his 2 favorite girls every night.

I don't think it would be out of the realm of believability for birds to group together according to several kinds of natural instincts. Fish form schools based on sound and chemical signals that they communicate with. It wouldn't surprise me if birds also had non-visual clues that influence them. And visual clues would seem even more likely, seeing as birds are very visually oriented. A bird might not know what color its own self is, but it probably instinctively knows what color of birds it is supposed to be with. But birds preen themselves, and I bet they do know what color their own feather are, even without a mirror.

I think it's really neat to see how many people have chickens that group up by color. My two buff orpingtons are rarely apart from each other. That usually happens when one is in the box laying an egg or something. Then when she comes out, the two are side by side again. The other chickens (apart from the new girl) are also usually fairly near to the main group, but it's only the two look-alikes that stay constantly in each other's personal space.

It's been a week now, and the new girl seems to be hanging out closer to the group, and getting chased off less and less. I also witnessed one of the orpingtons rubbing her comb on the back of the Ameraucana, as if giving her a noogie. So I think they are beginning to accept each other.

Here's a pic of my 4 weekers in their brooder. The black ones are all perched together and the yellows are on the ground together where I'm pointing. Sorry bout the red light special, I know it's hard to see