I moved my 12 week olds out to the "old pen" yesterday for the first time. All of my 20ish week olds have been out in the yard lately and have a brand new "big pen" to stay in from now on. Unfortunately they still have to share the night coop (8x8). I figured I would just put up a divider for now and they would each have a pop door from their section of the coop into their run.
Sounds great, right?
So yesterday it was in the mid 90's but VERY humid. Seriously hot. Like standing in the coop with the box fan blowing directly on me on high, I was still sweating bullets and dying of the heat. Needless to say I did not get the divider in...nothing seemed to go right. Finally it was getting dark and there was no way I was going to catch all those chickens and stick them back in the brooder shed for nighttime, then have to catch them all to put them back out in the morning before work.
So I fashioned a temporary divider out of two baby gates. I have a table in the coop along a wall so used the gates as "walls" under the table. After all the big kids went to bed up on their roost, I stuck all the younguns into the "little area".
It sure seemed secure enough last night.
Then I go out this morning and as I'm walking up the coop I hear one of the girls just squawking away. I look through the window and there are 12 week old all over the place! Hanging out on the roosts with oldest pulet and just everywhere. Their little divider was knocked right over.
So I had in this coop, 9 pullets approx 21 weeks old plus 1 cockerel of same age. And there were 5 pullets 12 weeks old plus 2 cockerels of same age.
Talk about a recipe for disaster! There was no damage that I could see. I think they were all so shocked they just stood around squawking.
I split them up into their separate pens and am now getting a serious fence fight between the top cockerel in the young group and my big cockerel. Good thing they weren't doing that in the coop!
Talk about accidental integration! Whoops?
When I let the big kids out of the coop one of the young ones tried to just follow right along behind them. Guess she thought she was one of the flock now
Sounds great, right?
So yesterday it was in the mid 90's but VERY humid. Seriously hot. Like standing in the coop with the box fan blowing directly on me on high, I was still sweating bullets and dying of the heat. Needless to say I did not get the divider in...nothing seemed to go right. Finally it was getting dark and there was no way I was going to catch all those chickens and stick them back in the brooder shed for nighttime, then have to catch them all to put them back out in the morning before work.
So I fashioned a temporary divider out of two baby gates. I have a table in the coop along a wall so used the gates as "walls" under the table. After all the big kids went to bed up on their roost, I stuck all the younguns into the "little area".
It sure seemed secure enough last night.
Then I go out this morning and as I'm walking up the coop I hear one of the girls just squawking away. I look through the window and there are 12 week old all over the place! Hanging out on the roosts with oldest pulet and just everywhere. Their little divider was knocked right over.
So I had in this coop, 9 pullets approx 21 weeks old plus 1 cockerel of same age. And there were 5 pullets 12 weeks old plus 2 cockerels of same age.
Talk about a recipe for disaster! There was no damage that I could see. I think they were all so shocked they just stood around squawking.
I split them up into their separate pens and am now getting a serious fence fight between the top cockerel in the young group and my big cockerel. Good thing they weren't doing that in the coop!
Talk about accidental integration! Whoops?
When I let the big kids out of the coop one of the young ones tried to just follow right along behind them. Guess she thought she was one of the flock now
