Starting our flock - The good, the bad, the ugly

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Vltyler

Vltyler

Chirping
Feb 7, 2021
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My husband and I are new to chicken rearing and have a question for the more experienced on this blog.
A little background for you all first. My husband built the “Palace” with modifications given we don’t have space limitations. It’s bigger and has a longer enclosed run for our girls. We have a flock of 11 girls, 4 Australorps from our local farm supply store and 7 that survived our order of 12 from a hatchery. 3 are olive eggers, 3 are cinnamon queen, and only one Easter egger remains. The first few weeks were heartbreaking as 3 were DOA from the hatchery and 2 additionally died in the first few days with us. Determined to have close to a dozen birds to start my flock, I purchased the 4 (minimum order) at the farm supply store.
They are approaching 6 weeks of age and appear to be doing very well. I feed them organic starter feed, have given them starter grit and we offer grass clippings throughout the day. Plus, they catch bugs all the time!!

My question is, 5 of the girls, the 4 Australorps and one olive egger religiously grab the top roost at night but lately the remaining 6 are sleeping in the corner of the coop on the floor. I have placed them on the roosts a few times but they jumped down and huddled in the corner before I even close the coop door. At first, I saw them all on different roosts but lately they are in the huddle. Any thoughts about why? And any suggestions would be great. Or do I just leave them as they are?
I’ll attach a few photos too.
 

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Hello and welcome to BYC! :frow Glad you joined.
How large is the coop? A coop with a predator proof attached covered run should offer 1' of roost space and 3-4 sq ft of floor space per bird.
The run needs to be 12-15 sq ft per bird. And you need to have lots of perches and objects to jump on and lots of run litter to dig around in.
You also have sub flocks of different aged birds. Once they all come into lay, the will integrate into one flock. The roosted birds are dominant and will drive off the others while they can.
 
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My young chickens did this too, since they were still earning their place in the pecking order.

However, to help fix this, you need to manually place your young girls on the roosting bar at night, once it is dark out. The other hens won’t realize that the young ones are next to them, until the next day.
This will help all the chickens begin to live peacefully!

but remover, you might have to do this for a month or two until the young ones start to earn their place in the hierarchy.
 
DobieLover said:
Hello and welcome to BYC! :frow Glad you joined.
How large is the coop? A coop with a predator proof attached covered run should offer 1' of roost space and 3-4 sq ft of floor space per bird.
The run needs to be 12-15 sq ft per bird. And you need to have lots of perches and objects to jump on and lots of run litter to dig around in.
You also have sub flocks of different aged birds. Once they all come into lay, the will integrate into one flock. The roosted birds are dominant and will drive off the others while they can.
Click to expand...
My birds are all the same age, only different by a few days at most. I had read and heard about incorporating new hens of different ages and didn’t want to deal with that so grabbed the 4 chicks within days of loosing the original chicks.
The enclosed coop is 4 x 5 ft and has a sloped roof. The top roost is 49” and at about 4.5 feet off the coop floor. The other lower roosts, 4 of them, are 36”. The predator proof run is 6 ft X 14 ft. The whole building is predator proof as we started on buried concrete block. We also buried chain link fence topped by hardware cloth. My husband plans to post exactly what he did, eventually.
 
The-Chicken-Keeper said:
My young chickens did this too, since they were still earning their place in the pecking order.

However, to help fix this, you need to manually place your young girls on the roosting bar at night, once it is dark out. The other hens won’t realize that the young ones are next to them, until the next day.
This will help all the chickens begin to live peacefully!

but remover, you might have to do this for a month or two until the young ones start to earn their place in the hierarchy.
Click to expand...
Thank you!
 

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