The new chickens are not getting quite the beating I was expecting. Despite the fact that we are keeping our three new and three old hens together in the same compound they are still acting as two separate flocks, but nonetheless the pecking and squabbling has almost come to an end.
Each group is being mutually ignorant of the other.
Sundown is still a little bit problematic. On the second night, which was the first on which they put themselves to bed, we found one chicken half out of the pop hole, with its head in the hen house and its bum on the ladder. Another was roosting on one of the wheels of the coop, and the third was on the coop’s roof. Last night – second night – things were better with two of the new chickens making it into the coop with the three old ones. Gabrielle, though, still went and put herself up on the coop roof, tucking her feet underneath her to keep them warm.
I’m hoping that tonight we’ll get a full house. Literally.
I don’t know what goes on in there over night, but the new ones are still getting herded into the nest box by the time we open them up the next morning.
Either way, so far it’s been a lot easier to integrate three new hens into the flock than I’d expected. Long may it continue.
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