Chicken Drama

Integrating the little chickens with the main flock has been more dramatic than in the past. The drama has ranged from finding the little chickens piled up behind the waterer to discovering that they'd flown over the fence into the neighbors' yard.

So clearly, some fortifications were in order.

Noel put in more roofing over the chicken yard, right where we'd decided we didn't need it because the old chickens showed no interest in vertical travel. Clearly this set of chickens has another idea.

After he'd built the structure, Noel nailed on the hardware cloth roof and then nailed avian netting along the open side. Tomorrow we will see if that helps keep chickens in the yard better.

In the meantime, they have been having to sort out their issues in a much tighter space, because we have had them confined to their room. Things seem to be going OK: while they are not all going to be huddled together on one perch for a while, they have sorted out who gets the upper and the lower perches, and the big chickens don't seem to be trying to kill the little ones any more.

And Carole is still broody, so she's been out of the mix entirely.

posted by ayse on 06/24/12