Cheryl's Hen House...

[TerryH]

Thought I'd throw in a pic or 2 of our Dianthus rock garden. It's not in full bloom but still pretty. I love spring.

 

[aart]

Stage 1 is complete. We went out and put them all on the roosts. They milled around for a few minutes and then all flew down. We let them chill for a few and then put them all back on the roosts. They pretty much just hung out there. A few flew down eventually. Few more went totally nuts dust bathing in the PDZ as you predicted. They like looking out the windows.

Great pic!....3rd from the right is a lunker! Amazing what a weeks(?) difference can make.
Don't let them eat too much grit...I usually mix some into scratch treats and throw it on the ground.
So did the Wy's sleep with the others last night...or still separate?

 

[TerryH]

Great pic!....3rd from the right is a lunker! Amazing what a weeks(?) difference can make.
Don't let them eat too much grit...I usually mix some into scratch treats and throw it on the ground.
So did the Wy's sleep with the others last night...or still separate?

There wasn't much grit in the dish and they didn't eat it all. I'll be careful with their grit intake.

The lunker is the BLRW cockrel...or whatever. After reading in the BLRW thread I'm keeping him/her for a while to be for sure. That one is about 3 weeks or so older than the 10 that were at out house. The 1 on the far right is the other BLRW. She's a she for sure and a week or so ahead of the rest.

We went back out after dark and put them all on the roost. It took a while for the 10 to work it all out. The BLRW's snuggled right in a little ways down the roost from the rest. lol...Chickens are weird.

 

[aart]

We went back out after dark and put them all on the roost. It took a while for the 10 to work it all out. The BLRW's snuggled right in a little ways down the roost from the rest. lol...Chickens are weird.

Good Deal....did the BLRW's segregate themselves?
I'd mix them into the crowd and not next to each other, before the segregation becomes more firmly established.

I didn't realize he was that much older, accounts for the size.

Haha.. they are kinda weird!

 

[TerryH]

Good Deal....did the BLRW's segregate themselves?
I'd mix them into the crowd and not next to each other, before the segregation becomes more firmly established.

I didn't realize he was that much older, accounts for the size.

Haha.. they are kinda weird!

Seemed to me it was almost more of a case of the 10 separating themselves from the BLRW's. I had them all mixed up to start with and re-mixed them a couple of times but the 10 all got on the very end of the roost and piled on top of each other while the BLRW's pretty much just snuggled up and stayed put. One of the Marans literally plowed under every one of the other 10 and knocked half of them off the roost a couple of times. It took about 30 minutes for the 10 to get it figured out. Comical to watch. The smaller BLRW does not let the big one out of her sight. It's going to be a heartbreaker if we have to separate them. I think that the fraidy box is adding to the segregation. I'll remove it tonight and see what happens.

 

[aart]

Surprised they were moving like that in the dark.
Just keep jugglin' those chicks and see how it all works out.

 

[TerryH]

Surprised they were moving like that in the dark.
Just keep jugglin' those chicks and see how it all works out.

Our chickens are extra weird.

We'll keep rotating them and see what happens. I could see some footprints on the chicken step so at least one of them has hopefully figured that out.

 

[TerryH]

Good progress tonight. I removed the fraidy box which certainly caused much upset at the beginning but they soon settled down and they were much more mixed without it. Once it got dark we put them all on the roost purposely separating the BLRW's with some of the others in between. They settled into 2 groups with 1 BLRW in each group. I didn't consider that we were going to be chicken trainers when this all began. lol...

 

[aart]

Haha...all domestic animals need some 'training'......do y'all have any pets?

It will be interesting for you to observe their behaviors when you remove all those boys in a few days.
There may be a couple days of 'confusion' until they jostle out their new pecking order.

 

[TerryH]

Haha...all domestic animals need some 'training'......do y'all have any pets?

It will be interesting for you to observe their behaviors when you remove all those boys in a few days.
There may be a couple days of 'confusion' until they jostle out their new pecking order.

My problem is that I'm not sure who is training whom.

I'm still debating on the big BLRW but the BCM's are out this weekend.

We have a big ole house cat named Ray.