The Montague’s had the Capulet’s, the Jet’s had the Shark’s, the McCoy’s had the Hatfield’s, but at our house, it’s the four Barred Rock chickens and the five slightly older Rhode Island Red/Black Sex Link hens. There is a feud going on, although a moderate one so far. We haven’t witnessed blood being spilled, but the number of loose feathers has increased. A chicken pecking order is definitely being established as we watch.
A little history to bring you up to date in this drama. Back in early April we bought five baby chicks from the local farmer’s coop–three Rhode Island Red and two Black Sex Link hens. They have been raised together and have received loving care from us and our granddaughter. We built a fancy new chicken coop with a fenced run and moved the young chickens into it when they were a couple of months old. They adapted well to the new facilities.
The coop we built can easily house more chickens, and we figured that adding a few more chickens wouldn’t be any additional work, so we looked around for a source of more chickens. A Craig’s List ad led us to a nearby place that raised various types of poultry. The conditions at this place were cramped and not very clean, so we felt like we were rescuing the four, young Barred Rock chicks that we bought. One of the chickens was bigger and looked older, and we suspected it might be a rooster. Barred Rock roosters are really striking birds, and we figured, why not? We are obviously novices when it comes to raising chickens, but we knew we had to isolate the new ones for a period of several weeks to ensure that both groups were healthy. So the Barred Rocks were placed in a chicken tractor for a couple weeks next to the coop/run with the five older hens.
On a couple of occasions all of the chickens were given free run of our fenced garden area. We thought this would be a good way for the chickens to say ‘hello’ to each other. The two groups of chickens scratched around and mostly ignored each other. The next phase of introduction and integration was to place the Barred Rock gang in the coop/run during the day, and return them to their chicken tractor at night. This progressed for several days. Then one night the Barred Rock gang went into the coop and hopped onto the roosting poles at dusk. So we figured if they were comfortable enough to go in, they must be ready for the permanent move. From that point the Rocks and the Old Hens have shared the coop and run. During these initial days, the Old Hens gang harassed the Barred Rock gang a lot, taking advantage of their larger size. It wasn’t looking good for the Rocks.
At this point we checked our chicken information sources for help in integrating the two groups. Our naivete became apparent, since numerous sources cautioned against mixing chicken groups and ages. Ooops! The damage was done, so we kept trying to help with the strife.
One day while I was tending the food and water, the rooster lost patience with an Old Hen that was acting bullish toward a Barred Rock hen. He grabbed the feathers behind the hen’s neck and hung on. Both flailed around for several moments. As they parted, the rooster proudly stood high with feathers hanging from both sides of his beak. Some minutes later he tried it again, but made a mistake of coming close enough for me to swat him off of the Old Hen. He didn’t like my interference and clucked and cackled his protest.
(Chicken philosophy tip: The humans need to become the ‘dominate rooster’ in their flock. This establishes the human at the top of the pecking order, making flock management easier. Thus, we don’t tolerate any aggression in front of us in the flock. . . we are the only ones to dispense chicken behavior modification when we are present.)
As a result, we have experienced the beleaguered Barred Rock chickens flying onto our arms or shoulders to seek a safe roost from the Old Hen gang. Kinda makes you feel warm and mushy inside to be a safe haven. We think the Barred Rocks had people contact at hatching and that has made them more sociable. The Old Hens were probably hatched by a machine and never connected with people, and they don’t much like being handled.
We never imagined that watching chickens could be so entertaining! More about the chicken wars in future blogs.
