Chickens are always surprising you. Here I was thinking my little flock was settling & the pecking order was pretty much worked out. How wrong could I be! After yesterday's shenanigans I went out early & moved the big girls out because I could see everyone else was agitating to get downstairs. The only one who made it was, surprisingly, Lavender. She squeezed between the Favorelles hogging the stairs & fled into the sand pit. Everyone else watched her goggle~eyed.
The new additions have turned my sweet Hepzibah [who has always been a stand back & think about it before acting girl] into a rather mean bully. She hounds the new girls mercilessly. Her flock mates are pretty much over it & only give the occasional peck now.
So everyone bar Lottie, who knows she now has free access to all the feed & water upstairs, comes downstairs & Luna, who has always been the more timid of the Favorelles, starts rushing @ everyone & chest bumping with her wings out. She met her match in Lavender who merely fluffed herself up & stood her ground.
Now Lavender usually roosts on the middle roost with Lottie, which should indicate these 2 are right @ the bottom of the pecking order, but this morning Lavender stood her ground to everybody, including Patricia [who is about to have a name change to Penny; I just can't see her as a Patricia], who by her very size [she is huge] has been @ the top of the new flock. The Campines are just insane. They skitter away from everyone, fly aggressively @ everyone & are generally lunatics.
Lottie has been running in Lavenders shadow, using the others fluffy bulk as protection & camouflage, & Lavender hasn't seemed to mind this. I think we are about to see the old order changeth. It might just be someone is about to come on the lay. I will have to check them over latter on & see how everyone is doing. The Campines hate me so that will be fun!