I have 2 brooders set up on my screen porch with chicks from 2 different places. I have been paranoid about combining them for fear that my first group has some medical issues after losing 7 out of 10. the 3 that are left are very healthy from what i can observe and are growing fast. I was going to try and keep them apart from my new Oliver Eggers and light brahma until around 5 weeks old. i got home last night and i noticed there was a poop up on the top of the larger brooder with the olives in it and i was missing one of them. After looking in the other brooder in noticed one extra chick in there and it was my Olive Egger. She jumped up and out at least 2' and then over to the other that is 18" away. The olives are 2 weeks old and the Red stars are 3 weeks old but they seemed to be happy together. It is a pain having 2 brooders so being that they want more room and want to be together i am going to combine them all in a bigger setup. i did have a cover over most of the both brooders and have not seen any vertical abilities from any of the chicks yet so this was a surprise to me. Then while i was out there cleaning things up one of the red stars jumped up onto the edge and just hung out for a while looking around at us. Funny little creatures.
Very cute story. Managing chickens means constantly watching and adapting, as they have their own ideas about how things should be!