Roost Shenanigans
So I promised a review of what has been going on at roosting time. One of the best things I have done is to install some wifi cameras in the coop and run. It enbles me to watch their behavior without human interferance and the results are sometimes astounding. Roosting time for about a week seemed quite chaotic. So I powered up the coop cam a few nights at roosting time to see what was going down.
As we all know, the Alpha hen, in my case Patsy, wants her choice of roosting spot. The Omega hen, in my case Hattie, just wants a spot on the roost with a minimum of abuse. So how do we know what Patsy's favorite spot is? Patsy has not always been Alpha hen. A year ago she was beta to my leghorn Daisy. Here is Daisy.
When we built the new coop 2 years ago now, Daisy was Alpha and she chose the best spot on the roost, all the way on the left hand side. Everyone would line up from there, Daisy on the left, Patsy next to her and Lilly on the end. When Daisy passed last spring, Patsy took over and she slid into Daisy's spot on the roost, all the way on the left. For the longest time this was not a problem. Patsy and Lilly on the left, in order, and Hattie and Jabber all the way on the right, to avoid the big mean hens pecking at them.
My best guess is that a few weeks ago Jabber decided he was no longer afraid of the old crew and now that he was cool, he wanted to sleep with the popular girls. This means Hattie keeps to herself on the right but about 1/2 way down the roost now and Jabber entered the sleeping arrangement on the left side of the roost.
The arrangements with the least fuss would be anything with Patsy on the left. This issues started occuring when Jabber or, God forbid, Lilly, got all the way to the left first.
This first video shows Jabber on the left, Lilly next to him and Patsy in 3rd position. It shows Patsy trying to knock Lilly off the roost so she can at least assume position #2.
By the way, Patsy was NOT successful.
This next video shows Lilly in position #1, with lots of room to spare, Jabber #2 and Patsy #3. Patsy spends a lot of time and effort trying to reach Lilly without messing with Jabber. She does not try to knock him off but exerts tremendous effort to get Lilly off and squeezes the roost space so far to the left that Jabber is squooshed between them. Just prior to the video starting, everyone was settled but Patsy decided to make Hattie move further away. As the video starts, Patsy is coming back from pushing Hattie all the way to the right.
All of this fighting went on for days. At least one night Patsy was able to bounce Lilly from the roost and likely after it became pretty dark because I found her sleeping in the nesting box when I went to collect eggs after dark.
Recently things have settled down. I figured out why last night. The flock ususally comes to the backdoor right before roostng for a late evening treat. I let them free range a lot now that Jabber is there to watch over them. Last night everybody was at the door except Patsy. It always worries me when one is missing so I checked coop cam. There she was getting her spot before everyone else went to bed.
Of course she gave up last minute treats for her roosting spot. Her decision.
