Patridge bantam chicken poorly foot?

[redfrock]

As you know we gained Cough some weeks back. We have been doing the introductions ever so slowly because it is 1 into an established group of 10. Initially she was in her own eglu and free ranging together, then 2 weeks ago we segregated part of the walk in run with weighted down 8ft high chicken wire, stapled to the internal supporting posts, and gave her her own cube. The others were most put out as they used her one to sleep in and the lilac one to lay in. By last week end the free ranging was going exceptionally well and the supervised mixing in the main run was not going too badly. She had a bit of a funny turn last Friday (all ok now) so we thought we would wait until this weekend to complete the integration.

 

Well, the chickens obviously had other ideas. I went out half an hour ago to collect the eggs etc, only to get the shock of my life. There was our ginger bully Milly, staring out of Cough's cube. I rushed round to the egg port to find Cough sat on a couple of eggs, and another 4 of the girls also roosting in the purple cube. I have absolutely no idea how they all got in there. There were no signs of forced entry , and thankfully no signs of feathers or blood. Cough seems fine. Bron - top chook- was in there too. She has been giving the bullies a solid peck when they have given Cough a hard time in the past, so hopefully she kept them in order.

 

So it looks like they decided to integrated themselves

[mostin]

I had self integrating chickens, I posted about it a couple of weeks ago as I, like you, was so shocked .

 

I went to all the trouble of two houses and separate runs and being really careful and feeding treats along the fence line, and then limited and supervised freeranging, but I was obviously going too slow for my girls.

 

They kept flying out of their runs and had us running ragged. It turned out the nebies were escaping and one was going and laying her egg in the eglu! So we gave in and they all merged that night. It was nice that it was their choice though and under their timetable, it all went without barely a peck because of that.

 

Since then they havn't escaped at all and they are only kept in by omlet netting, they were obviously just dying to meet each other like your girls were. awwwww.

 

So glad your integration has gone smoothly even if it was a suprise

[Egluntyne]

I think the more hens you have, the easier the intros are.

 

Good to hear that they have sorted themselves out.

[AJuff]

I think the more hens you have, the easier the intros are.

 

Good to hear that they have sorted themselves out.

 

Totally agree. . . our three new marans who had ben living in a green eglu inside the walk in run have ventured out into the big run with the others today. All went really well, I hovered about just in case but was not needed. 10 in the cube, 3 in the eglu! All happy.