One Happy Family?

On Friday, July 20, late in the afternoon we mixed the baby chicks with the older chickens.  I'm not sure exactly how old the younger chicks are but we have had them for six weeks.

Mike went into the dog run that contains the small chicken coop and removed the wood barricade that prevented the chickens from intermingling.

The older chickens immediately entered the once restricted area to eat from the baby chicks feed pan.  

The baby chicks were hiding in the back corner diagonally across from the feed pan.  Ellen, one of our original three chickens and probably the chicken lowest on the peeking order drifted over to them.  She did not stop to check them out just kept walking on by.  

Here we have a picture of the first time we have been able to compare Winifred, our first and only Americuna chicken, with her one of her new Americuna coop mates.  They could be twins.  

Winifred was the only chicken that bothered to actually look one of the new guys in the eyes.  

The baby chicks were a little stressed and not aware of where the door was between the two chicken runs.  One of them would run through it and the others would start looking for a way to get to her.  In general they tried to stay together.  At one point, all the baby chicks and all three of our oldest chicks were hanging out together in one run.  

It was a peaceful co-existence until one of our Barred Rock hens came upon the scene.  She immediately went after the little guys.  She was trying to peck them but they fled.  She was the only older hen who treated them mean but she did so at every opportunity.  I knew this because I could hear a lot of distressed squawking while I was in my garden.  

Finally, per Lois Peterson's suggestion, we isolated her from the rest of the chickens.  

The Barred Rock hen ended up spending the night on the roof of the little coop while everybody else slept in the big red chicken coop.  Mike had to help three of the baby chicks to bed.  They were going to roost on a ledge in the outside run.  Hopefully tomorrow will be a lot less stressful day for our flock.