- Jan 31, 2012
- 92
- 2
- 41
Hey everyone! I'm new to chicken keeping, like 2 weeks new. We got my daughter some silkies (6 of them!) for her birthday last week. All I had read about them was that the were sweet, docile, and the best "pet" and "mother" chicken around so I decided thes were our chickens. Plus they're just so cute! but after researching them much more I have found they are not the best egg layers, which is what I wanted out of the deal... So I got 3 barred rocks yesterday (pullets, but due to start laying any day we were told.)
This morning we introduced them and they just seem so much larger than the silkies, and our little silkie roo has just been fighting and fighting them all morning, one BR especially seems to want herself to be dominant over the rooster! And when they're not fighting, he will crow, and the BR hen will respond with what I can only describe as a chicken laugh!
So now I'm second guessing my decision to house them together, we have them in a 16x16' area in hog panels, which was keeping the 6 silkies just fine but those 3 huge barred rocks just seem to take up so much space and they're so tall! And even after clipping their wings, one of the BR's was able to hop/fly up on top of the coop I made for the silkies! It's about 3' tall, and just barely shorter than the hog panels... So I guess I'm off to the store to get some chicken wire to go the rest of the way up the t posts... Any diff suggestions for the fencing? And should I keep the silkies and BR's together or separate them? Thanks so much!
This morning we introduced them and they just seem so much larger than the silkies, and our little silkie roo has just been fighting and fighting them all morning, one BR especially seems to want herself to be dominant over the rooster! And when they're not fighting, he will crow, and the BR hen will respond with what I can only describe as a chicken laugh!
So now I'm second guessing my decision to house them together, we have them in a 16x16' area in hog panels, which was keeping the 6 silkies just fine but those 3 huge barred rocks just seem to take up so much space and they're so tall! And even after clipping their wings, one of the BR's was able to hop/fly up on top of the coop I made for the silkies! It's about 3' tall, and just barely shorter than the hog panels... So I guess I'm off to the store to get some chicken wire to go the rest of the way up the t posts... Any diff suggestions for the fencing? And should I keep the silkies and BR's together or separate them? Thanks so much!