- Mar 14, 2012
- 40
- 5
- 24
I currently have a random assortment of 9 hens, 8 are almost a year old and 1 is almost 2 years old. I added the 9th one about 3 months ago, a friend had her coop raided by a raccoon and everyone was killed except one poor hen who was guarding the body of one of her deceased friends and attacked anyone that dared to even look in the coop. I threw a towel over her, hauled her home and stuck her in my coop. She huddled in a nesting box for a few days attacking any person or hen that went near her, then came out, evicted all my hens that were convinced they needed to lay eggs under my shed (yay!!), spent a week huddled under the shed in the daytime, back in her chosen nest box at night and then one day came out, joined all the rest of the hens and is a happy lil egg-laying chicken since. I think I lucked out it went so easily.
I now have two Cuckoo Marans that around about 6 weeks old, one hen and one rooster that are living in the house. They really need to go out (hubby is complaining about the smell even though the box is cleaned daily). Fully feathered and no longer have a heat lamp, lowest temp in the house is 62 at night. Outside it's mid 60's during the day, mid 30's at night and the coop is insulated and heated. We've taken a few field trips outside, the Production Reds are hell bent on pecking them if you put them with everyone else. Tried penning them up so everyone could see each other... the big hens went eh, whatever can't get to you and I have 40 acres of bugs to go munch, See Ya! Other than staring at them for 5 seconds, never went within 400 feet of their pen again that day.
So now what? I'd really like to get the hen integrated at least since I promised the husband no Roosters and I can't get rid of him until she has friends. Husband thinks I should stick the Rooster in the coop one night and see if the hens attack him since he's turning out to be one nasty lil Roo and most likely will end up in a pot anyways.
I now have two Cuckoo Marans that around about 6 weeks old, one hen and one rooster that are living in the house. They really need to go out (hubby is complaining about the smell even though the box is cleaned daily). Fully feathered and no longer have a heat lamp, lowest temp in the house is 62 at night. Outside it's mid 60's during the day, mid 30's at night and the coop is insulated and heated. We've taken a few field trips outside, the Production Reds are hell bent on pecking them if you put them with everyone else. Tried penning them up so everyone could see each other... the big hens went eh, whatever can't get to you and I have 40 acres of bugs to go munch, See Ya! Other than staring at them for 5 seconds, never went within 400 feet of their pen again that day.
So now what? I'd really like to get the hen integrated at least since I promised the husband no Roosters and I can't get rid of him until she has friends. Husband thinks I should stick the Rooster in the coop one night and see if the hens attack him since he's turning out to be one nasty lil Roo and most likely will end up in a pot anyways.
