The chickens are finally all figuring out this new life and the routine of it. The Sussex's still huddle into a big group together and seem very afraid of this big world. I think that's mostly because they were raised in a barn and then my garage until they were around 14 weeks old. That's a long time to be inside not feeling the sun on your back. But steadily every day they explore the chicken run and side yard they have access to. No matter how many times I feed Curious our one pet chicken from my hand the Sussie's still won't come over and try some, Curious = bad ass brave chicken to them I am sure. Another thing these girls don't do is scratch, growing up on a concrete barn floor they learned their is no point to scratching. It should be funny to see what they think when Curious dust baths for the first time. We did have to teach the Sussie's how to roost, it was completely foreign to them. We'd go out every night just before dark and place each bird on a roost. Jacob came up with the idea to lower one of the roosts and keep one at it's original height, which seemed to help the girls figure it out quite a bit faster. Now two of the Sussie's will roost next to Curious although she still isn't happy about it.
I get the chicken butt pose all the time from these girls. It's the "this is what we think of you" pose.
The red stars were dispatched the same weekend we started integration. They were so pissed at the new additions that yelling ensued and in a very unhappy chicken way. I feared that the neighbors might get really mad if we didn't do something fast. So the red girls went to Camp Freezer.
This is what Curious thinks of the whole deal, she is in operation protest mode: seen here giving me the stink eye.
Jacob's going to work on building some outside the coop nest boxes this weekend. We took the nest boxes out of the nesting area to give the Sussies more room to figure out how to jump up and roost. Now with one roost lowered our nest boxes no longer fit inside the roosting area. So we have to think of something else.
How interesting that the Sussie's behave so differently. I guess that happens when you grow up in a barn. Do you have photos of your coop area? I would love to see how yours is setup, we are thinking of raising bantams.
ReplyDeletemeemsnyc- I'll do one better for you, weather permitting I'll take a video of my setup so you get the scope of things.
ReplyDeleteWe just recently integrated 7 new hens into our flock as well, so far so good. I'll have to look into the sussex breed a bit more, such a lovely bird. I would love to a video of yourset up too.:)
ReplyDeleteMr.H- We didn't have too much of an issue with integration. Ours didn't want to fight but they sure wanted to yell about it. I'd have been fine with that if I didn't live in close proximity to non farmers. LOL. So far the Sussex's have been very gentle if a bit skittish I think that would be different if we'd raised them from babies though. I'll blog post about our set up.
ReplyDeleteYeah, for a new posting! Love keeping up on this and seeing the pics.
ReplyDelete