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Little Tala Bug said:
Hello and thank you for your reply!

I'm not entirely sure how old he is. We rehomed him from a lady on a facebook rehoming page who also didn't know much about them except that William was half Shetland and the girls were battery hens. We got him in October and he already had his full comb and giant wattles and was crowing all over the place and getting frisky with our most attractive hens, so I think he had already reached sexual maturity. Our hens only recently came back into lay for the spring, so I think his hormones have him all worked up. We have a couple extra coops lying around, so can house them separately if need be.

Only two of their fights came to any real blows so far today, the rest have been mostly chasing and flapping. I will open up the largest of our spare coops today and see if they choose to roost separately. Both have groupies amongst our hens, so hopefully things will shake out naturally with the division of the flock and each will get to hang out with his favourites.
We tend to try and intervene in their politics as little as possible, preferring to let them work things out for themselves. So far, that has not been problematic, but waking up to poor William's distress calls this morning was a bit harrowing.
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I think you are going to do fine! It's taken me years to get to the no interference stage. I've tended to make situations worse by interfering.
(One would think I'd know better after raising three children.)
 
Little Tala Bug said:
Hi all,

Longtime lurker, first time poster here. I've had chickens for about a year and half now and have come to this forum so many times for advice so I thought I'd bite the bullet and join up.

At the moment I have nine hens and two roosters, all of whom have been rescued or rehomed. The older rooster, William Richard Johnson II, came from a rare Shetland rooster crossed with an unknown hen. His son, Johnny Cashew, came from one of our three ex battery hens, Peanut, Hazel, and Coco. There are four Wellsummer x Araucana hens, Samantha, Bridget, Carmen, and Henrietta, who came from a friend's mom and lay gorgeous blue and green eggs. Last but not least we have two miscellaneous hens, Keithabella and Sharon, who are very large and were part of our original batch. They were rehomed from an urban backyard where their human was getting too old to look after them properly.

They all coop together at night in a big converted dog kennel, and get just under an acre of land to roam during the day. Their favourite spot is under a stand of coniferous trees where they make holes for dust bathing, hop up on low branches to perch, shelter from the wind, and generally just do their chicken thing. They also love to drink from our pond and forage for bugs in the tall meadow grasses in the yard which we have mostly left to re-wild. When the berry bushes are ripe they eat their fill before we can get any for ourselves, but that's ok. They share the yard with my two small rescue dogs who get along well with them and protect them from foxes.

For the most part we have had very little issue with introducing each new batch of chickens. Establishing the pecking order has been relatively gentle and squabbles have resolved quickly. With plenty of space to roam each day and a larger than necessary coop, they can maintain distance if they need to.

Recently, however, Johnny Cashew has started to become aggressive to his father, William Richard Johnson II. The previously got along very well and tended the flock together with no problems, but this morning I was woken up by sounds of distress from William, whom I discovered battered and bloody on my front stoop. Since then, Johnny has chased William whenever they get close to each other, and I've had to run him off several times already this morning. I hope it is just excitement from mating season and we can go back to a harmonious dynamic soon, because they are both very good boys and popular with our ladies. It is sad to see William waddling about on his own, away from the rest of the flock. He is a beautiful and rare boy, and his son is an absolute specimen, so it would be nice to see him have more babies in the future.

Anyway that's all I can think to say by way of introduction. Thank you all for helping me on this weird and wonderful journey with our feathered dinosaur friends!
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Welcome to BYC!!
 
janiedoe said:
I think you are going to do fine! It's taken me years to get to the no interference stage. I've tended to make situations worse by interfering.
(One would think I'd know better after raising three children.)
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Thank you Janie. I think we will be fine, too; it was just a shock since everything so far has been pretty ideal. I am a firm believer in letting things run their course and taking the least invasive actions possible. Those dinosaurs have been on this planet far longer than us and for the most part I trust that they know what is best for themselves, even if it runs counter to what we would do amongst ourselves.

It is a lovely, sunny day today so I am going to head out and do some yardwork so that I can observe their dynamic and prepare the spare coop for tonight. William has been escaping the yard and running about on the driveway so I need to figure out how he is doing that and put a stop to it before nightfall. I know our old hen, Queenie (may she rest in peace) used to be able to fly up onto the fence to get pats but never flew down onto the other side. Clever girl. It makes me wonder if they all can escape and just choose not to, and now that William is a lone wolf, he is attempting to strike out on his own. He won't get very far with the foxes round here, so I'm going to try to figure something out. Maybe will have to send my cleverest dog out as a security detail... she is obsessed with trying to befriend all animals great and small. The chickens tend not to be as thrilled. XD
 
Howdy, :frow and Welcome to Backyard Chickens.

Happy :ya to have you here with us. Enjoy your time here at BYC!
Glad you decided to de-lurk!
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Thanks for joining our community! :celebrate
 

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