I have 5 littles that have completed quarantine. Two are 4 mos old, the other 3 are just 3 months. They were purchased from the same pen of about 30 babies and quarantined together for the past 5 weeks. The oldest hens are now both crowing (yikes) but they are still pretty civilized.
I divided my 11x13 coop into roughly halves, with water and roosts on each side. The side with the nesting boxes is for the existing two hens. Once they leave the coop to the adjoining 35x60 run, they are separated by 4' fencing, but each area has a small coop, shade, food, water.
So last night after dark, I moved the littles to the roost in their half of the coop. Returned at dawn, to lots of crowing (argh) and everyone came down to eat. My older hens were not as interested in breakfast as usual, so I proceeded to let them out, then rearranged the fence panels so the littles went to their area. It was like they had studied for the test! They ate, drank, dust bathed, napped, later in the day we had cold fruit treats. One of the hens did pace the fence to keep an eye on them, but there was ZERO fighting through the fence. The lil roos did hop around at each other for a few minutes, but no physical contact.
It took a bit to herd the little back in- which is to be expected. At dusk they put themselves on the roost. Part of me feels like I wasted a LOT of time dividing the coop and putting up temporary fence. This was a NON EVENT. It's tempting to just let them out tomorrow, but I wondered if it's better to be just a little cautious and give it another day to be sure? Words of wisdom?
PS- side topic, I know I need to address the roos. I think the breeder will take them back-- but I think she will simply process them and I struggle a bit. But that's for another post.
I divided my 11x13 coop into roughly halves, with water and roosts on each side. The side with the nesting boxes is for the existing two hens. Once they leave the coop to the adjoining 35x60 run, they are separated by 4' fencing, but each area has a small coop, shade, food, water.
So last night after dark, I moved the littles to the roost in their half of the coop. Returned at dawn, to lots of crowing (argh) and everyone came down to eat. My older hens were not as interested in breakfast as usual, so I proceeded to let them out, then rearranged the fence panels so the littles went to their area. It was like they had studied for the test! They ate, drank, dust bathed, napped, later in the day we had cold fruit treats. One of the hens did pace the fence to keep an eye on them, but there was ZERO fighting through the fence. The lil roos did hop around at each other for a few minutes, but no physical contact.
It took a bit to herd the little back in- which is to be expected. At dusk they put themselves on the roost. Part of me feels like I wasted a LOT of time dividing the coop and putting up temporary fence. This was a NON EVENT. It's tempting to just let them out tomorrow, but I wondered if it's better to be just a little cautious and give it another day to be sure? Words of wisdom?
PS- side topic, I know I need to address the roos. I think the breeder will take them back-- but I think she will simply process them and I struggle a bit. But that's for another post.
