Esther and Winnie~ Emerald ~ Momma Time~ UH-OH Egg Overload P46

[Smoky73]

Barg, to tell you the truth, what I would do with your birds (seeing you have alot less than me) is to seperate the two groups again for like a week. Then introduce ONE of the larger ladies in with Esther and Winnie. Not the other way around. let that be it for a few days to a week. Then introduce another large girl to the group. wait another few days.The idea is that Esther and Winnie will already have a pecking order amongst themselves, and the larger ones will be the newcomers therefore will have to start at the bottom for a change. I have had this work well with the bachelor pen when I had one and only had one or two birds to introduce to the group. It is far better to introduce several birds to a older established group but, we all cannot do that. My group is just to large for this plan to work for me.

 

[barg]

This is not really an option anymore with the way i'm currently set up.
If you look back in this thread you will see where I put the older ones in with the younger ones for a couple weeks, constantly switching them around to mix up the pecking order; at the time this wasn't a problem because the older ones were not laying yet, now that the older ones are laying, it would be difficult to do this.
The other problem is that the younger ones now sleep inside the house with the older ones.

I'm not saying it's a bad idea, I think its a good idea that is hard for me to implememnt at this stage, at least without doing a little construction.

Winnie is about to mature, she's going into that molt, that my others did just before their wattles and comb changed.
If things get better after Winnie matures, then the problem will be solved, if it doesnt improve then I will have to do some building, otherwise the younger ones won't have a place to lay.

If I do need to do something along the lines your suggesting, it will wait have to wait at least a few more weeks.

And now this weeks pics.....

 

[barg]

15 weeks and 23 weeks - Still Crazy After All These Years
Winnie is now larger than Esther, not in height or length but in girth.





Save Me!! (right after this picture was taken, she jumped up on my leg and sat down)


Run Away! Run Away!
(Domineak, Emerald, Mrs.Nezbit in the back)[/url]

 

[barg]

I guess I should clarify this....

At this point, the younger ones have been separated from the older ones most of the time.
In the evenings, when the older ones go in for the night, I wait until they are settled in and then let the younger ones into the main coop so they can go in as well.

On occasion, I have purposely opened the divider and let them intermingle; more frequently one of the chickens will knock the divider out of the way and they will intermingle, but as I said, for the most part they have been segregated(in theory) ... until today.

Today I moved the tractor and added a temporary corridor between it and the main coop, the reason for this is to let all of the chickens have access to the grass, that's getting out of control, just in front of the tractor.
I figured, it gives them a little more space, access to greens, and they do end up all together a decent amount of time anyway.

The younger ones do already have a pecking order, there is no doubt that Winnie is dominant and Esther is Not.
I also have no doubt that Esther will always be on the bottom, Winnie's final place in any pecking order that develops is unknown.

Both of the younger ones are deathly afraid of any single member of the older sorority.
If I were to try and introduce one of the older ones into the younger ones territory, the older one would still push them around because the fear has become so engrained in them and because they are not as mature and feisty as the older ones.

What the final outcome will be, I can't say at this point.
I'm pretty confident that the younger ones are large enough that they can avoid being killed by the older ones, but I'm still not happy with the dynamics in the coop; I am still holding out hope that Winnie will come through in the end and kick some booty.

 

[barg]

Sorry need to add these pic's to todays line up, call them "bonues band width suckers"

On the left: You can still see where winnie injured her beak when I first intorduced them./ And one of Hazel, cause she does'nt get in the pic's that often

For the record, Hazel is the last of the older ones that has not laid, at least as far as we know. I can tell the other three egg layers eggs apart just by looking at them. Emerald's tend to look long amd narrow haveing a dirty brown look; Mrs.nezbits are a little more orangeish, fat and stubby; Domineaks are light with white speckles.

 

[barg]

As of 9/30 they turned 24 and 16 weeks.
My last weekly post was a little late and that confused me so, i'm typing this as a reminder to self

I'll update the pics in the next couple days.
I did not expect to be actively posting on a weekly basis by this point, it just worked out that way; but now, with the possability of their egg laying in as little as a week and a half, I'll continue until they do.

 

[SpottedCrow]

Cool!
I love seeing the pics and reading the commentary.

 

[thndrdancr]

I do too, keep it up.

Those poor battered girls, they have battered chick syndrome!

I hope mine arent TOO afraid of the big girls, Red got a good peck in last night right thru the small window hole in her box when I had the little ones out. Not sure who got it, I think it was the showgirl, but they both jumped and squealed like a pig.
Lily is a terror tho, she teases them thru the box, she KNOWS they are in there and goes up and pecks all over their box and actually sticks her little beak partially in, then jumps away. Lily is big enuff to take it, but she is also smart, she pecks then at least stand backs, but poor Dash is just following Lily, was just standing there looking confused and Red went "PECK", I think she grabbed some of Dash's lil fur too, poor baby. (Dash isnt the brightest bulb in the socket but she is fast so guess that makes up for it) She hasnt figured out there is anything in there. I normally keep pulling them away from the big girls box, but I was chopping up a boiled egg for them.
First time, and I couldnt get the little ones to eat egg! How do you get them to like egg? I need to get some protein in them and I am having a very hard time finding bugs in the yard since the big girls do a bang up job.
Well I stole your thread. Maybe I should put Disco Lily and Dash, fluff to feathers thread.

Jill

 

[domromer]

Hello! I've been busy with college and work lately so i haven't been keeping up to date. It seems just from reading this page, you are sill having trouble with intergration. I must say I am totally out of helpful advice. 3 weeks ago I built my tractor. We put all the girls in it. For the first 3 days the little girls were kept at the end of the tractor cowering in a corner. On the 4th day we went on vacation for a week and left my mom to take care of them. When we returned hope, we had achived integration. It feels like we cheated after all the trouble you've been going through. Have you thought of building 2 separate tractors and not bothering with integration? Forgive me if this has been brought up already. I'm too busy/lazy to delve through all the pages of this post.

 

[barg]

The word of the week has been mud.
Today we had a little break from the rain and when I went out to take a couple shots, I saw this coming toward me.


I'm not sure if it was the change in the weather or what but during the last week the older girls egg production dropped off for a couple days.
One of the days we got a thin, soft shell, I'm not sure if thats Hazel finally starting to lay or Domineak having a relapse from her earlier eggs.


It's time to start keeping an eye on their combs, I expect that they will start to change dramaticly sometime in the near future.
Winnie's comb and wattles have started to change a little already.


Esther still hasn't changed that much.

There have been attacks by the older ones and Esther seems to get more of the abuse then Winnie.
Winnie has been making attempts to intermingle with the older ones.


These attempts are succesful as long as the older ones are distracted. Esther always brings up the rear, following Winnie wherever she goes.


Thanks spot!
Grats Dom!
Jill, feel free to post in my thread as much as you like, If you were to start a thread like this for your chicks, I would definatly follow that

As I said before...
I am in the process of putting the information from this thread onto my personal website.
I have added a few "NEVER BEFORE SEEN PHTOT'S!" how do you add an echo to typed words?

Anyway, if you don't mind if you repost your responces to this thread on my site, let me know.

I havent gotten up to date on my site yet so, if you look at it, be warned.