Today, I tried Tallulah with the Omegas. First, one of the girls harassed her so I let them out into the much larger free range area and had to carry Tally out into the grass. She didn't make any effort to eat. She sunbathed by herself (with a buzzard circling, which I kept an eye on and so did she).
She got up and walked back toward the fence. When Nathaniel came trotting over, I pointed a finger at him and told him to go away and leave her alone. He did as he was told, good boy. She just stood there, left eye closed. The entire group walked off, including Angus, didn't bother her. Finally, I took her back inside and put her back with Sebastian.
I honestly have no idea what is going to happen with her. At least she's eating more, but I'm at my limit as to what else I can do for her except let her heal on her own time. If she doesn't, I cannot have two males running with three females and I do not want to put one or both in a different pen from the girls-that is what I was trying to avoid because it makes so much more work for me. Someone who keeps hundreds of birds at once like Jamie does will never understand why I just cannot make my life harder at this stage. I wanted this flock, but it may come down to one rooster with three hens and that's it. With no spare breeding male, if something happened to Angus (it would be Angus I kept, the all-round better male), I'd have to decide at that moment if i was going to hatch from them to get another, or just give up on the project and keep those beautiful girls as layers. But, we'll cross that bridge when we come to it. Maybe I should have just waited until a later date to raise this flock or abandoned the idea altogether.
