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What do you have in your flock?

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Thanks for all the info everyone!! Although now you're making me really nervous they're not gonna be okay.
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I've seen people say they do fine and they're really friendly with them and stuff plus the eggs are cool so I got them but now I'm nervous. I hope they'll be fine though as I don't want to have to get rid of any birds or anything. I don't think I could separate them either since we don't have one coop built let alone two. Buuuuuttttt.... That said, we do still have the dog house so I could probably clear it out and use it if needed. It's obviously not good for 9 birds but I think it's 4 by 5 or something, not sure which way is which and I'm pretty sure it's smaller on the inside, so would probably be fine for the two, especially smaller ones. I'm hoping they'll be together though. I'm going to make the run and hopefully coop big too and/or provide extra feeders and waterers so it should hopefully help. But also I'm hoping to free range them so that should maybe help cause if there's issues they can just go hang out by themselves or with the calmer birds. I'm thinking I might even put some like "toys" in the run too so they're not bored especially if the don't free range. We don't have many predators here but I just saw a massive hawk yesterday so this may go poorly

You can never know exactly how a mixed flock of different breeds is going to behave after they reach adulthood. Mixing Leghorns and Marans with EEs can give you one result. Mixing Australorps and Orpingtons with EEs might give you another result. Mixing Polish, Silkies and EEs another outcome. Mixing all these breeds together yet another result. Adding a roo to the mix yet another outcome. EEs seem to find a way to avoid conflict and a free-range backyard is best so they can hide or run from the more assertive dual-purpose. Whatever your mix will be just watch out for the vicious bullies. Pecking order squabbles are normal chase and peck activities but vicious bloody fights I won't tolerate and have instantly re-homed bullies into bigger flocks of their own kind. Isolating a bully never worked for us because once they are back in the flock they very quickly work their up to mean obnoxious behavior again.

We have had a Cooper's Hawk (chicken hawk) and an Owl in another year that visit our yard regularly but I caught on early by watching my hens over the last nearly 5 years and picked up some tips from these smart girls. Our first year we experimented free-ranging them in a very open backyard lawn but we had a low plywood lean-to set on cinderblocks to shade their water and feed during the day. We had 2 Silkies and 1 White Leghorn and the intuitively smart Leghorn would dive under the lean-to whenever the Hawk came into the yard to sit on the fence or lawn furniture. The Silkies can't fly so they would dive into the one doghouse or lean-to with the Leghorn. We also had a stickery rosebush on the fenceline that the hens also used to dive under whenever the Hawk flew over.

That gave me an idea and over the years I have added 4 large recycled doghouses, a pop-up canopy with legs buried so it doesn't para-sail in the wind, two plywood shelters, a staircase pallet, and a couple cedar lawn chairs. We're planning to add an arched bridge as a focal design in the center of the yard as another shelter for the birds to dive under. The Hawk is resident and unless we kill it there's no way to keep it away. This has been its territory for years. Crows and wild Green Parrots harangue and chase it off from time to time but it always returns landing on our cedar lawn chairs or on the fence and watches our 2 Silkies, Ameraucana, and Breda but I don't worry quite so much anymore with all the strategically placed hiding areas.

For some reason the Hawk can be 5 feet away from a hen but won't go after it if it's hiding in something like a rosebush, a doghouse, the coop, or under one of the lean-to's or lawn furniture. The thing about Hawks is that they use an open area like a big lawn or field to swoop on their prey and Silkies can easily be picked up in their talons. So far in nearly 5 yrs we lost NO LF hens or Silkies because of the proximity of shelters we placed all around the yard. You can make the lawn furniture and doghouses as plain or as fancy as you want as long as there are plenty of spaced shelters and the open lawn area is covered with lawn tables and chairs for the hens to dive under instead of being running targets across an open lawn. The spaced shelters is the only explanation I have about why our hens in 5 years have never been picked off by the insistent Cooper's Hawk.
 
If I remember correctly a straight run batch of fifty was a batch of forty by the time they were big enough to butcher the extra roosters. At first we were finding skeletons and thought we had a predator problem, pulled them out of the tractor they were in, put them in a more secure location and it kept happening. Finally we caught them in the act. There was one little pullet that was a runt, and she was blue, so kind of cute. We knew she couldn't be part of that and we didn't want her to get eaten, so we put her in with a different batch. Then we found a wounded chicken and there the little blue pullet was looking all innocent, she could have pulled it off if she would have cleaned the gore off of her beak. We eventually ended up with about five hens out of that batch that we kept. Those things sure did lay good, went straight through the winter and made it through until the next without slowing up. Once they started to lay they weren't as cannibalistic, but nothing better take a nap around them either. Like I said, their offspring were the same way.


Oh wow, that's ridiculous!! I've never heard of anything like that before! Especially a whole entire batch!! I could see maybe a few but the whole batch and offspring. Wow. I wonder though since the offspring did it too and you didn't do anything different and other chickens don't do it if it was perhaps genetic?
 
You can never know exactly how a mixed flock of different breeds is going to behave after they reach adulthood.  Mixing Leghorns and Marans with EEs can give you one result.  Mixing Australorps and Orpingtons with EEs might give you another result.  Mixing Polish, Silkies and EEs another outcome.  Mixing all these breeds together yet another result.  Adding a roo to the mix yet another outcome.  EEs seem to find a way to avoid conflict and a free-range backyard is best so they can hide or run from the more assertive dual-purpose. Whatever your mix will be just watch out for the vicious bullies.  Pecking order squabbles are normal chase and peck activities but vicious bloody fights I won't tolerate and have instantly re-homed bullies into bigger flocks of their own kind.  Isolating a bully never worked for us because once they are back in the flock they very quickly work their up to mean obnoxious behavior again.

We have had a Cooper's Hawk (chicken hawk) and an Owl in another year that visit our yard regularly but I caught on early by watching my hens over the last nearly 5 years and picked up some tips from these smart girls.  Our first year we experimented free-ranging them in a very open backyard lawn but we had a low plywood lean-to set on cinderblocks to shade their water and feed during the day.  We had 2 Silkies and 1 White Leghorn and the intuitively smart Leghorn would dive under the lean-to whenever the Hawk came into the yard to sit on the fence or lawn furniture.  The Silkies can't fly so they would dive into the one doghouse or lean-to with the Leghorn.  We also had a stickery rosebush on the fenceline that the hens also used to dive under whenever the Hawk flew over. 

That gave me an idea and over the years I have added 4 large recycled doghouses, a pop-up canopy with legs buried so it doesn't para-sail in the wind, two plywood shelters, a staircase pallet, and a couple cedar lawn chairs.  We're planning to add an arched bridge as a focal design in the center of the yard as another shelter for the birds to dive under.  The Hawk is resident and unless we kill it there's no way to keep it away.  This has been its territory for years.  Crows and wild Green Parrots harangue and chase it off from time to time but it always returns landing on our cedar lawn chairs or on the fence and watches our 2 Silkies, Ameraucana, and Breda but I don't worry quite so much anymore with all the strategically placed hiding areas. 

For some reason the Hawk can be 5 feet away from a hen but won't go after it if it's hiding in something like a rosebush, a doghouse, the coop, or under one of the lean-to's or lawn furniture.  The thing about Hawks is that they use an open area like a big lawn or field to swoop on their prey and Silkies can easily be picked up in their talons.  So far in nearly 5 yrs we lost NO LF hens or Silkies because of the proximity of shelters we placed all around the yard.  You can make the lawn furniture and doghouses as plain or as fancy as you want as long as there are plenty of spaced shelters and the open lawn area is covered with lawn tables and chairs for the hens to dive under instead of being running targets across an open lawn. The spaced shelters is the only explanation I have about why our hens in 5 years have never been picked off by the insistent Cooper's Hawk.


That would be good if they can mostly avoid conflict by themselves. :) I definitely think I'm going to try the free range thing too.

Speaking of which, that's a great idea about all the shelters! I have to find a way to put something in the middle of the lawn without it looking terrible haha may be quite a challenge. Although also I feel like you may have told me this once or even twice before, in more detail too I think, and now I feel bad you had to type it so many times.
:/
 
That would be good if they can mostly avoid conflict by themselves.
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I definitely think I'm going to try the free range thing too.

Speaking of which, that's a great idea about all the shelters! I have to find a way to put something in the middle of the lawn without it looking terrible haha may be quite a challenge. Although also I feel like you may have told me this once or even twice before, in more detail too I think, and now I feel bad you had to type it so many times.
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Never a problem my friend - I don't mind sharing anything my girls have taught me over the years LOL! Middle of the lawn was our challenge also since we had a couple of cedar lawn chairs but they still looked funny in the middle so that's when we got the idea of an arched bridge. There are cheaper ones and way expensive ones - as long as it looks like a focal point and has a place for the girls to dive under it should work fine.
 
Thanks again. :) an arched bridge sounds like a nice idea. I was going to say with a pond under until i realized it's supposed to be a hiding place lol although actually speaking of that, during storms it does turn into a pond. :p
 
I currently have nine chickens. Hens & pullets: one buff Orpington, one Barred Rock, two black sexlinks, one white Rock, two silver laced Wyandottes. Roos(who were supposed to be pullets): gold laced Wyandotte, black Australorp. They range in age from app. seven months to four years.
 

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