Some of them will soon discover two other things:
1. All predators eat chicken, from mites to bears.
2. Chickens will harm each other.
If you're going to raise chickens, you really need to sign up for Chicken Psychology 101. Today I have some case histories for those who are learning. Anyone who has had chickens for a couple of years will know at least this much, but maybe it will save some new poultry owner a little grief.
The chicks I raised in late spring are at least half grown now. To put them in their "permanent" pens, I had to mix birds that had never lived outside their small hatching groups. Some breeds are easier to mix than others.
White Old English
I put the oldest pair in with their momma (she's on the bottom). They get along fine because she's smaller than they are. If I had put them with her when they were babies, she would have chased them around and pecked them to death. How do I know this? Past experience. It doesn't matter if the eggs are hatched in an incubator or this hen hatches them herself. She likes eggs, but she doesn't like babies. An annoying percentage of hens share this fault.
I put the rest of the white OE all in one pen.
I trimmed the sharp ends of their beaks before I did this, just in case they ganged up on each other. They didn't, they get along fine and probably will until the 2 cockerels are old enough to fight. By that time I will have sold one of them. These birds not only got along right from the beginning, they liked each other.
Dominique Bantams
My DBs are very hard on each other. First, I can't put many of them in a pen. Second, I do NOT mix hatching groups. There were 3 cockerels in the oldest group. I had to separate them a month ago, as soon as they started crowing they started fighting. I sold one that had bad feather color. Each of the other two is in its own small pen. I catch them every day and handle them, just in case they mature to be decent show birds. It's hard to keep a lot of males because they have to be separated, and that means you have to maintain a bunch of small feed and water containers.
I had 2 older DB hens from one bloodline and 2 from another bloodline that I wanted to put together. To keep them from killing each other, I put an older rooster in a fairly large pen first, then added all the hens at once a week later. It was not home territory to any of the hens, it belonged to the rooster. So they didn't feel obliged to defend it. That worked fairly well.
This is a pair of young Dominique Bantams.
They're in the lanky "teenage" stage. These birds will stay together as they grow.
This is a younger pair. They're with a mutt pullet that was raised with them.
I can't put the Dom pullet on the right in with anything else because she's blind. Sigh. The mutt pullet and the Dom cockerel she was raised with take care of her for now.
The birds that are hardest to move around are the Anconas. They're wily and strong. I had 4 hens and a cock in a large pen with a Leghorn hen. The Leghorn's sister is the one that broke her leg last year. I had to keep her in a separate pen, and was never able to put her back in with the others. This year I raised one Ancona pullet and two Legconas – crosses between the Leghorn hen and the Ancona male.
Anconas
Anconas are GREAT laying hens, and they're very hardy. Fifty years ago they were commonly kept for eggs. Leghorns are the breed that is now raised commercially. They're more economical to keep because they're smaller. I've learned a lot from keeping the two Leghorns this past year. I've seen this breed in crowded commercial conditions and felt sorry for them, where there are as many as 8 crowded into a pen where they can't stand very well or move around. By the end of a laying season, their feathers have been rubbed on the wire and they look really ratty. Well, compare the Anconas above with one of my Leghorns below.
She looks as ratty as a commercial bird. She's in the same big pen the Anconas are in, she doesn't rub on anything. The others don't pick on her at all, she doesn't pick herself. I wouldn't say the Leghorns are stupid, but they aren't as self-sufficient as Anconas. It will be interesting to see how the crosses turn out. Here is one of the Legcona pullets.
It was really a chore trying to integrate the lone Leghorn hen, the 2 Legcona pullets, and an Ancona pullet into the big Ancona pen. I tried it twice and ended up taking the new ones out because they would not come off the perch to eat. The Ancona pullet got cornered and pecked. Luckily I got her out before she got eaten (yes, that can happen). What I finally had to do was take the Ancona rooster out of that pen and put him by himself. He wasn't chasing the new ones, but they were terrified of him. When he walked around, they'd panic and run and the older hens would chase them.
After I took the rooster out, I put the new girls back in the big pen and put food in 3 different places. After a week or so the new ones were getting along well enough that I could feed them from the same feeder. After a month, I put the rooster back in and they're getting along fine.
The older Ancona pullet is in with 3 younger ones and a mutt. The mutt keeps them calm so they don't beat themselves to death on the wire. How do I know they'd do that? Experience. Sometime in December, these 4 Anconas will have to be integrated into the big pen, too.
Not every breed acts the same. With some breeds, you can keep males together and they won't fight unless you separate them for a couple of days and try to reintroduce them. With other breeds, even the females will fight. I've seen females like that gang up on a rooster and almost kill it. Some breeds are mean to people but nice to each other. Some breeds like people but are mean to each other. And individual birds have their own idiosyncrasies.
For right now (knock on wood) there is peace in the chicken yard. It doesn't come easily.
