First night of integration

[KyCoop]

Tonight was the first night the babies and the ladies were together without a barrier in the coop. The babies are 7 wks old and have been in the coop with a barrier for two weeks. This morning after the ladies had left the run into the yard we took the barrier down. It took a little while but they got up the courage to go out into the run. They had a great day enjoying the sun and dirt. They got a few pecks from the Queen but all was well. The lowest lady did chase them and bite them but again all was well.

When it started getting dark the ladies came in the run and ran the babies out to the yard. They tooled around in the yard for a bit but the light was quickly fading and they were getting scared. ZZ the only little Cockrell is terrified of the dark and he was screaming. The ladies had gone into the coop so I got the babies into the run and shut the door. I had to catch each one and put them through the pop door. I turned the light on so they could find their spot. I thought they would go to their area but they started to try and jump on the roost with the ladies! This did not go well. I have 24 feet of roost space. 5 adult ladies and 7 babies.
One of the babies stood her ground and managed a spot in between the queen and her bestie. One ran into the nest box with a broody , got on her back and Ruth let her stay. The others managed to get to their area and onto the roost. We left the pop door open in case the morning brings another round of screaming and hair pulling.
Tomorrow we are buying a battery lantern we can hang so we can attract them to the proper roost spots.
Interacting is so stressful.

 

[rosemarythyme]

I let chicks decide when they want to join the adults on the roost. So far that's worked fine for me, but it does mean I don't know how fast/slow it'll happen.

You have an impressive amount of roost space and yet the birds still want to fight over it. Resource guarding is real!

 

[KyCoop]

I wanted to let the babies decide and I would have been fine for them to sleep in the run. But they were going up the ramp and then turning around all while screaming. They knew they were supposed to go in there.
They were trying to get to their area but had to pass under the ladies on their roost. That's all they had to do to get to a completely unoccupied coop area with 12ft of roost space. But it was "dark" in there. Correcting that today.
I think since some of them made it to the proper roost the rest will follow tonight. Ha ha.