Thanks for all the info everyone!! Although now you're making me really nervous they're not gonna be okay.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.