Friday, June 22, 2018

An Update On The New Girls (& An Old One)



In the past couple of weeks we've been working on integrating the new chicks with the old hens.  It has been a bit of a bumpy ride as Miss Matilda hasn't been as welcoming as we had hoped.  In fact, she has been downright ornery about it.

We put the two older girls into the big crate in the pen area and allowed the newbies to run around and get used to the new space.  Once they were acclimated and were able to find their way into the coop each night and sleep we let Edith out of the crate and she did fine with them.  she let them know who is boss and then all was well.

The youngsters were wary of the older hen, but after a few days everyone seemed to be pretty much settled in.  Then we let out Matilda and she proved to be a bit of a bully.  Little brat.  So she is now in chicken jail until she can get a better attitude.

She hates it and makes quite a bit of ruckus.  We have moved her away from the coop and out of sight of the others which irritates her to no end.  And, when she gets really worked up she crows like a rooster.  I'm sure my neighbors are thrilled.  This is a new thing she started doing a couple weeks ago.  She is such a brat!!

8 comments:

  1. "Chicken jail" - haha! It's too cute, I love it. Matilda and Edith are perfect names (as well as Laverne).

    D.

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  2. This was a timely post. My seventeen year old son (Autistic) asked the other day if Roosters were only male. After doing some research, we found that "rooster" in most cases are the leaders and without a male in your flock she is protecting them. I wonder if she thought the new girls were a treat. Doubt any of this helps you, but good luck.

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    1. She was bullied by one of our hens that died (that hen ended up in chicken jail for a couple weeks too) so I figured that was likely the problem. The new ones really got her worked up. Poor thing.

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  3. I have never heard of a hen crowing like a rooster before. Hmmm...maybe there is a way to cash in on this newfound talent of her's? ;)

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    1. Ha! Wouldn't that be nice? She seems to be settling down a bit now so she hasn't been crowing anymore.

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