Chicken keeping without coops or with mutiple coops

[True Patriot]

Yes I did make some assumptions, my apologies. I'll get back to this later.

No apologies necessary. This is a good conversation. Your points are interesting.

 

[Shadrach]

I would like to respond to everyone's posts with more than a thumb up.
At the moment it just isn't possible.
I have a very small problem trying to keep up with the tribe and while dad is being very supportive he can't pick the chick up and move it to a safer place.
I'll respond to as many as I can,so please be patient.

 

[centrarchid]

I am still not keen on use of word "tribe" as used in context of chickens. It is not particularly accurate and it complicates conversing in English when other terms are already in place that are more informative. You may as well be cussing.

 

[Shadrach]

I knew very little about chickens when I started looking after the chickens here. There were two breeds and two ‘coops’.

At one side of the main house the was a flat pack garden shed with some perches in and at the other side of the house, next to the vegetable garden, there was a different sort of coop called a ziggurat.

In the garden shed were four Maran cocks (Major, Oswald, George and T) and two Maran hens (Fat Bird and Mora). There were also two Bantams in the shed, one cock (Random)and one hen (Mini Minx).
In the ziggurat there were two Bantam cocks (Harold and T2) and two hens (Blue Spot and Tan)

The chickens in the ziggurat were kept in the coop and run permanently. They had, as Bantams do, gone up a tree to roost and the owners had got tired of getting them down and shut them in the ziggurat.

The garden shed chickens were let out at some point in the day and free ranged. It was the senior cock Major, who first aroused my interest in chicken behaviour. Major didn’t move with the tribe and for some weeks he hung around the garden shed; I was putting up a fence around the sheep field the garden shed was in, and got to watch Major throughout the day.

Oswald, always the ladies man, went off with the Maran hens, but Mini Minx and Random just disappeared. Throughout the day I would see Random running flat out from one location to another and I had no idea why.

George wandered on his own into the woods one day and I never saw him again.

T is one of the cocks mentioned in a post above about the big fight.

I started to try and follow Random, difficult on the terrain here, and Random was spending his day either around the ziggurat, or hovering a few metres away from Mini Minx who spent some time with Major, some time with Oswald and also hung around the ziggurat.

Random used to try and pick fights with Harold and T1 through the chicken wire of the ziggurat, especially if Mini Minx was close to Harold and the other Bantams.

After about a year I persuaded the owners to let me free the Bantams so that everyone was free range. The day Harold and the other Bantams got their freedom was fascinating and is told in one of the stories in the book.

There were no other coops at this stage.

A couple of things happened in quite a short space of time. Mini Minx decided to sit. There had been no natural hatching's here before. The owners said the hens wouldn’t sit. She hatched four chicks (the father was Major). Random took on the job of helping Mini Minx look after the chicks and died defending them, and Mini Minx, from a hawk attack, after which Mini Minx moved into the ziggurat with Harold, Blue Spot and Tan.

Now all the Bantams lived together and all the Marans lived together.

So, it seems that here at least, given a choice the same breeds chose to live together.

During the second year I observed a lot of behaviour that contradicted some of the ‘common knowledge’ regarding chicken behaviour.

Cocks aren’t supposed to assist in the rearing of chicks. Random not only assisted, he died defending them and they weren’t even his chicks. He dug for them, guarded them when Mini Minx started laying eggs again, he watched them when Mini Minx took dust baths.

I’ve seen other cocks helping in chick care since. A lot depends on whether the hen will let the cocks near the chicks. At the moment (there’s a picture above) Mel is out and about with her 5 day old chick and following the tribe. Yesterday the chick had problems negotiating some of the banks here and Cillin was hovering between the rest of the tribe and Mel with the struggling chick. Cillin was shouting the house down. When I went and gave a helping hand Cillin stopped shouting and hustled Mel and the chick closer to the rest of the tribe.

Over the years I’ve been observing the chickens here it became apparent that these chickens at least are tribal. The tribes are made up of genetically related individuals. They are so tribal that I’ve had a situation where I’ve had hens living without a cock, not because there weren’t spare cocks here, but because the cocks weren’t interested in the hens. With some they would mate with the hens if the hens let them, but they wouldn’t guard them, find food for them and wouldn’t live with them.

As the population of chickens has fluctuated over the years I’ve built coops to accommodate them and given a choice, the ones with the strongest genetic links and strangely, similar looks in colour

and plumage have chosen to live together with very few exceptions.

Each tribe has a senior cock and a senior hen and they rule the tribe. There is very little change to the established ‘pecking order’ and provided there are sufficient hens each tribe has three or four hens and progeny if applicable. I’ve had a maximum of 5 tribes with this arrangement. When the senior cock dies if there is no male progeny the tribe disperses, or remains a female single sex tribe until a cock with some genetic link becomes available.

The hens ‘pecking order’ is always based on seniority in years within each tribe. It’s only when hens from other tribes mix that there are pecking order contests. Gedit (in one of the pictures above is the senior hen in tribe three. She is genetically related to a varying degree with all the other tribe members. She’s been the top hen since the tribe established itself.

I’ve tried forcing hens and cocks from different tribes to live together by moving them at dusk into a different tribes coop. When they are let out in the morning they go straight back to their chosen tribe and stay with them for the rest of the day.

Of course, in large groups of hens with only one or two cocks all made to live in a single coop this ‘natural’ arrangement isn't apparent.

Human animals are much the same. You can force different families and/or social groups to live together; we do all the time. But, when given a choice we tend to find that those of differing race, culture, colour make their own communities which co-exist within what we call society.

Flock; a company of creature.
Tribe; a group of creature of common descent.

I am still not keen on use of word "tribe" as used in context of chickens. It is not particularly accurate and it complicates conversing in English when other terms are already in place that are more informative. You may as well be cussing.

Tribe is very accurate in the cases I've described above.
We call Muscovey Geese ducks, but they are not genetically linked to the Mallard.
Muscovey 'ducks' are genetically linked to geese.
Because a term has fallen into common use doesn't necessarily mean the use is correct.

I

 

[centrarchid]

Very weak position to use taxonomy in that manner. Your usage has been more consistent with "harem" but at other times "flock". The mating preferences and genealogies you describe are not hard and true as you describe. I am very much into animals in training and profession so particular about how the subject is treated.

Being someone very much interested in relationships and behavior, I am concluding your very flowery approach confuses understanding of what the birds are doing and our relationships to them.

 

[Shadrach]

Very weak position to use taxonomy in that manner. Your usage has been more consistent with "harem" but at other times "flock". The mating preferences and genealogies you describe are not hard and true as you describe. I am very much into animals in training and profession so particular about how the subject is treated.

Being someone very much interested in relationships and behavior, I am concluding your very flowery approach confuses understanding of what the birds are doing and our relationships to them.

Perhaps you could come up with an alternative explanation?
I think my rough definition of the word tribe is accurate enough given the post above.

 

[centrarchid]

You have some interesting observations to relate to others, but clarity of terms used needs improvement.

Look into following terms:
Flock
Harem
Pair
Brood
Clutch
Cohort

I use term subflock as well as can find situations where groups are organized consistently with that definition.

 

[Shadrach]

Hang on a minute! I've just re-read your post.
"The mating preferences and genealogies you describe are not hard and true as you describe".
Given you appear to be pedantic about the language I use maybe you might want to retract the above.
I have tried to be absolutely clear that I am writing about my observations of the chickens here. There may be other explanations. One would need to have observed the events in order to give one though. To say that what I describe is not hard and true implies I am not being truthful in what I write. This may be a problem of misunderstanding (?)

 

[True Patriot]

As much as I agree with centarchid that using tribe is outside the norm for use with chickens. It appears to be somewhat proper in the manner used.

 

[True Patriot]

I don't see the correlation between nationality and the post. Which was essentially in support of the manner of use of the words in question.