My baby bantams are genius'!

mom4morecritters

Songster
13 Years
May 4, 2008
140
2
206
Northern Minnesota
My baby bantams proved to me tonight that they can work together and problem-solve when needed!

I don't think they are all in this photo, but I have fourteen bantams that are 8 wks old: 2 sultans, 3 blue Wyandotte's, 3 self blue Cochin's, 3 Sebright's, and 3 blue red OEG. In the background left is Shirley, a buff Cochin (who is a "mommy's girl"), and Prince Roo on the other side of the fence.

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Our coop is 8x12 divided into three areas: left side is banty coop, center is the main entrance, storage, food, etc., right side is the coop for standard chickens (not yet finished on the inside). There is a standard door from the main area into each side of the coop. You can see the main door to the standard coop in this next photo. This was taken about a month ago. You can also see the banty chicken door.

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In this next photo you are looking at the left wall of the coop. You can barely see the chicken door on the right side of the photo, near the top. DH finished the top layer of chicken wire all the way around the banty run yesterday, except a 4' section near the main coop door.

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This afternoon I closed the chicken door and opened the main door of the coop and the banty door, then walked off. It was my intention to clean out the banty's coop, but I was side tracked the rest of the day and totally spaced it off! I realized how I had left my baby's coop when I went out to lock up the chickens tonight. (My other chickens, besides the 14 baby bantams, Shirley, and Prince Roo are two 25 week old pullets, eight 10wk old pullets, and seven other bantams the same age as Shirley - 21 wks).

I looked all over their run but I couldn't find Shirley or the baby's anywhere! My heart sank. As I walked closer to the main coop door I heard some faint peeping. After walking inside the banty coop and seeing Shirley and ALL of the babies roosting, I was relieved! They must have been so determined to go to bed that they flew over the only section DH hadn't put the second layer of wire on, where the fence was only 3' high, and flew up into the coop and proceeded to THEIR roosts to go to sleep!

They are genius' I tell ya... GENIUS'!

~Anne
 
Very nice coop and very smart bantams
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Great idea to separate the coop. I wish I would have thought of that before we built ours. NOw we are making a separate coop for the bantams which I KNEW I would never get
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Quote:
Thanks, we really like the coop... of course I wish it was even BIGGER!
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We originally built it to house chickens on one side and rabbits on the other. Well, after I went a wee bit chicken crazy
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and started buying bantams, then more pullets, and then more bantams, the logical thing to do was turn it completely into a chicken coop!

BTW, I was very concerned about mixing the baby bantams in with any of the other chickens. I did put a Cochin pair in with the babies to be the "parents". Before DH was able to put the top row of wire on the fence, I had standards and 20 wk old bantams flying in and out all the time. No one was ever mean to the babies, not that I saw anyway. My buff Orpington, Ginger, started roosting with them a week after the babies moved into their new coop. At this point there hasn't been any issues with having standards and bantams, all of varying ages, run around together AND roost together! They are all just one big happy family (except four bantam cockerels that are 20 wks old... I wish hubby would get rid of for me!).
 

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