About a week ago we discovered an old hen outside one of our bedroom window. We recently named her Marilyn because she's about the same color as Marilyn Monroe, and people have said she's as crazy as Marilyn Manson. We figure she spent about a week quarantined on our property, and another week or so on our neighbor's property after she apparently fell off a hay truck. We didn't feel right keeping her cooped up in a tote forever and, besides missing plenty of feathers from what looks like a rooster(s), she looks perfectly healthy.
We have 4 flocks on the property. 1 free ranges(this is our biggest flock). We call one the ten because we ended up with 10 random breed birds that stay in an outhouse-turned-coop in one of those big outdoor dog kennels(I can't think of the dimensions off the top of my head). We just got a new coop that we put our guinea fowl and 6 new(yet quite old) hens in. And finally, there is my personal 13 who are staying where the guinea hens were. The ten rejected Marilyn completely yesterday, she won't even go near the door of the kennel. The guineas have done fine with her(surprisingly) but the old hens are about 2 or 3x her size and quite feisty so she's doing worse in there than with the ten. Putting her in the large flock is out of the question. The only chance left is to hope she does okay with my 13. But my 13 are all varying ages under 18 weeks, and I would guess she's at least 3 years old. We don't want to see her die, but the only other option is to bring her to auction today and I really don't want that to happen. If it does she'll probably just go back to some other big farm that doesn't give a crap and is oblivious enough to drive off with her in their hay truck.
The other thing is that I barely have enough room where my 13 are for them, we're working on a big coop now, but who know's when it'll be done.
Please help!
Thanks.
We have 4 flocks on the property. 1 free ranges(this is our biggest flock). We call one the ten because we ended up with 10 random breed birds that stay in an outhouse-turned-coop in one of those big outdoor dog kennels(I can't think of the dimensions off the top of my head). We just got a new coop that we put our guinea fowl and 6 new(yet quite old) hens in. And finally, there is my personal 13 who are staying where the guinea hens were. The ten rejected Marilyn completely yesterday, she won't even go near the door of the kennel. The guineas have done fine with her(surprisingly) but the old hens are about 2 or 3x her size and quite feisty so she's doing worse in there than with the ten. Putting her in the large flock is out of the question. The only chance left is to hope she does okay with my 13. But my 13 are all varying ages under 18 weeks, and I would guess she's at least 3 years old. We don't want to see her die, but the only other option is to bring her to auction today and I really don't want that to happen. If it does she'll probably just go back to some other big farm that doesn't give a crap and is oblivious enough to drive off with her in their hay truck.
The other thing is that I barely have enough room where my 13 are for them, we're working on a big coop now, but who know's when it'll be done.
Please help!
Thanks.
