Ribh's D'Coopage

[RoyalChick]

Perhaps... Henry is very taken with Alpia. As a non-chook I see that all my super strong personalities are now gone and what's left are sweet, non-aggressive, non-dominant girls. The flock is now mostly really, really young. World, & Alpia are the oldest ~5/6. Chavi is 3/4. Everyone else, including Henry, is only 12-18 months. Plus Ha'penny was really predator aware. She was better than Henry. She was a great forager. Wrold & Alpia have benefited from that.

I have a very different group to what it was even 12 months ago. My largest hen is an Aracuna/Silkie cross. All bantams of one sort or another & 1/2 frizzles. I am used to having several really strong personalities amongst my girls & lots of smarts. This lot isn't dumb but they don't have the Ha'penny sort of smarts & being rural Australia we have plenty of killers around. My resident currawong is super territorial & a killer. She hasn't harassed my birds but she has dropped some hefty sized kills in my yard. Saw her, so I know it was her & she is nesting just now so there will be young soon. She nicks eggs too. Then there are the crows, ravens, magpies, kookaburras, & the larger butcher birds [so named for a reason] ~ all predatory & can take out even quite large prey. Without Ha'penny my flock is much more vulnerable.

Had to look up currawong. So many scary creatures! At least for me, the crows are friends as they don’t go after the chickens, even the chicks, but are very territorial and chase away hawks.
I feed them peanuts to encourage them to hang around.