Ribh's D'Coopage

[MaryJanet]

I must remind myself to write about high level cooperation I've seen in Tribe 2 one day. Quite extraordinary behaviour.

That would be fascinating.

 

[RoyalChick]

You are most kind rereading my stories. I fear I may be getting like my grandmother and staying to repeat my stories too much.

I should have saved some for that interview!

We love the stories. I laughed out loud again at the cherry pie just like I did when I first read it before joining this thread.

 

[RoyalChick]

I must remind myself to write about high level cooperation I've seen in Tribe 2 one day. Quite extraordinary behaviour.

Yes please do.

 

[Ribh]

One of the things I always wanted my girls to have access to, whether I was home to let them out or not, was a dust bath. Accordingly I Iaid a strip of bricks across the back of the coop run & under the coop so it would also always be sheltered & filled it with sand. It is a good sized area & very popular. It is one of the first places new girls investigate ~ even before food & water ~ & when the weather is bad it is usually still pretty dry & all the girls can *puddle cuddle*, as MJ puts it.

However I ran into a problem. Chooks are messy. Chooks moult.
Gradually, each week, dirt & straw, leaves & feathers began piling up in the bath area, though no~one poops a lot in this area, which is interesting. If I wanted it pretty clean for the girls then I had to rake it out @ least weekly. Just now I am doing it daily & sometimes twice daily. I could stuff a doona with all the feathers that are accumulating just now! It is a pain.

So today I collected another pile of bricks, raked the area really well & lifted the lip before adding some new sand. It won't stop everything but I am hoping it will help some. The girls will enjoy flattening the pile! The things we do...

 

[MaryJanet]

One of the things I always wanted my girls to have access to, whether I was home to let them out or not, was a dust bath. Accordingly I Iaid a strip of bricks across the back of the coop run & under the coop so it would also always be sheltered & filled it with sand. It is a good sized area & very popular. It is one of the first places new girls investigate ~ even before food & water ~ & when the weather is bad it is usually still pretty dry & all the girls can *puddle cuddle*, as MJ puts it.

However I ran into a problem. Chooks are messy. Chooks moult.
Gradually, each week, dirt & straw, leaves & feathers began piling up in the bath area, though no~one poops a lot in this area, which is interesting. If I wanted it pretty clean for the girls then I had to rake it out @ least weekly. Just now I am doing it daily & sometimes twice daily. I could stuff a doona with all the feathers that are accumulating just now! It is a pain.

So today I collected another pile of bricks, raked the area really well & lifted the lip before adding some new sand. It won't stop everything but I am hoping it will help some. The girls will enjoy flattening the pile! The things we do...
View attachment 2180896​

It's a good size!

 

[Ribh]

It's a good size!

Yes it is, MJ ~ about 4'X 8'. They usually share this area pretty well & of course it was never meant to be all the space they had, just so it was always available. I usually have leaf litter in the coop run but they have accumulated so much soil for me I really need to do a big clean out before adding any more. They are raising the floor level everywhere they have access!

The water & feeder are on bricks ~ which used to be raised ~ & that tells you how high they've raised the floor level!!! @ least 4" & that's just in the coop. It's feet in the run!

 

[rjohns39]

Good evening folks

 

[Grammy60]

Good evening everyone

 

[Shadrach]

I have been thinking about something @Shadrach said about the Pecking Order being more co~operative than is generally thought so I have been watching my girls a little more closely than usual.

There are 2 times in the day when I usually spend time when I can observe them: feed time [which happens between 2.30 & 3 in the afternoon] & roosting time. Feed time can be fairly chaotic. I have a lot of chooks vying for my attention & depending on what their day has been like it is when I will see the occasional dispute. Feed time signals the winding down of their day. They are back in the coop area. If there is any sunlight someone will be hogging it. There is a lot of preening & lots of the girls take a last dust bath in the sand pit under the coop.

Once everyone has eaten it is generally a very peaceful time of day until I appear with a handful of corn to tide them over the long cold night.

My big girls often don't eat @ feeding time. They generally perch on a log & oversee operations.

My middle order girls hog the tubs & all the lower order girls swarm around me. This includes Ha'penny & Lavender, definitely middle order these days, but part of the original girls I began handfeeding to ensure everyone got something. All the Campines tuck in. Honestly, they are mad, mad women. They have no qualms about giving me a tap to let me know they're there or eating from my hand, but any move to be more friendly & they act like I'm the devil incorporated! My bantams know I'll make sure they get preferential treatment but if a higher status girl arrives they freeze. What I find most interesting is who is allowed to eat with whom. Alpia & both Aoife & Medh tolerate each other but Aoife won't tolerate Medh & always gives her a sharp peck to drive her away; Ha'penny will tolerate Alpia but none of the other Campines. Wrold will peck Alpia, who was higher but seems to have slipped in the rankings. Both Araucanas seem to be loners. Beatha will eat from my hand but she's a biter so I discourage her; Mhari will not. Suyin spends most of her time pushing other hens off the food while not eating herself. While it is noisy the girls are generally well behaved & operate according to chook law.

Roosting is another matter. It seems to be a case of first in, best dressed. Everyone wants to be on that top rail. However there doesn't appear to be any set order in which the girls head off to bed. Often the bantams will be first but that does not ensure they will keep their position. Lavender often dithers so long there's no longer enough space for her to hop up. If she makes it there is usually a bantam under each wing. She doesn't seem to mind being a surrogate mother.

As @BY Bob has pointed out, my girls are crazy about squishing as many of them as possible onto that top bar ~ but it will not hold all of them. It won't even hold most of them comfortably & this is where it gets interesting; they seem to be taking in in turns as to who has to roost on the 2nd bar. Every night it is a different 2 or 3 girls ~ including my top hens! Everyone seems to have to take a turn having a cooler night. This is incredibly egalitarian of them! I've been monitoring this for weeks now & every single bird has had @ least one night on the second bar. Yes, my lower ranking girls are more likely to be on that 2nd bar but they are often paired with a top ranking bird. Even my lead hen has taken a turn. It is the luck of the draw as to who gets a really cold night. Ha'penny, who is having a really heavy moult, was on the 2nd bar for the coldest night we've had so far. I was a little concerned but she was fine. Even the silver Campines, who are prone to simply jumping up onto backs & wiggling till gravity drags them through a swath of feathers to the bar, have taken their turn. The man is talking about extending the top bar along the northern wall but like so much else around here it is unlikely to be happening any time soon.

This man you keep mentioning; does he have an identity or is he just some random male that shows up from time to time.

 

[Shadrach]

Do share more, perhaps an example?

It's a horror story.