FunnyBunny89
Chirping
- Apr 3, 2024
- 55
- 49
- 51
Hey all! I just wanted to share my experience with my first flock. To start, I will give a quick background:
We got EE chicks at 3 weeks old. They were clearly mishandled because they panicked when anyone came near them. I spent a lot of time hand feeding them live mealworms to help them see me as a safe person and it definitely paid off, but I was only ever able to hold two of them and one of them was never happy about it. Once they were 6 weeks old, we put them in the coop. I continued to hand feed them for another week and would occasionally pick up the one who tolerated it most but the others would run before I could get close enough.
Then we got 4 more chicks as day old babies and I made sure to handle them plenty. 2 of them are Wyandottes and 2 of them are Olive Eggers. You could see the difference in their sense of security with me right away when I brought them into the flock; the Wyandottes in particular have always been very relaxed with me.
Flash forward to a week ago, and while I do spend a good amount of time with my hens, my EE still had some anxiety around me unless I was feeding (except for the two that tolerate me). They also had a tendency to pick fights with each other, especially two of them who would really just go for it every evening. They wouldn't target anyone in particular, but they did mostly fight with each other. I decided it was time to find a roo when an owl showed up on a fence post one evening and sent everyone off in a panic.
We picked up our roo a few days ago from a sweet family who just had too many. They said he was getting picked on by their other roos, and never showed any aggression. When I got him home, I kept in a pen for about an hour, which is how long it took for the fighting hens to do their thing through the pen wall (pecking at him and growling) before they settled down and seemed relaxed. When I let him out, they all charged him one by one and he very quickly shut them down but he was surprisingly careful about it. For the rest of that day, my feistiest hen was whiny and kept coming to me like she wanted my comfort. I think her new rank made her upset. He roosted with them that night and everything went fine.
Today is our third day and EVERYONE IS SOO HAPPY AND RELAXED!!! I say that in bold because the change is PALPABLE! I am so pleased!
Really, they were relaxed the very next day but the roo was still acting a little on edge. Now he's just loving his flock and I have caught him twice in their nesting boxes trying to encourage them to lay. They aren't laying yet but could be any time now.
All of my hens approach me now, nobody shows any anxiety or fear, and my fighters have totally chilled out. The roo is a calm boy who doesn't seek my attention but he has no issues me or the kids, or anyone I bring into the coop area.
I feel really lucky that this worked out so well, but I wanted to share because sometimes we need good news stories for encouragement.
This site has been so helpful to me and I love seeing everyone's chickens and coops and reading their stories. I hope my story can be useful to others as well!
Thank you!
We got EE chicks at 3 weeks old. They were clearly mishandled because they panicked when anyone came near them. I spent a lot of time hand feeding them live mealworms to help them see me as a safe person and it definitely paid off, but I was only ever able to hold two of them and one of them was never happy about it. Once they were 6 weeks old, we put them in the coop. I continued to hand feed them for another week and would occasionally pick up the one who tolerated it most but the others would run before I could get close enough.
Then we got 4 more chicks as day old babies and I made sure to handle them plenty. 2 of them are Wyandottes and 2 of them are Olive Eggers. You could see the difference in their sense of security with me right away when I brought them into the flock; the Wyandottes in particular have always been very relaxed with me.
Flash forward to a week ago, and while I do spend a good amount of time with my hens, my EE still had some anxiety around me unless I was feeding (except for the two that tolerate me). They also had a tendency to pick fights with each other, especially two of them who would really just go for it every evening. They wouldn't target anyone in particular, but they did mostly fight with each other. I decided it was time to find a roo when an owl showed up on a fence post one evening and sent everyone off in a panic.
We picked up our roo a few days ago from a sweet family who just had too many. They said he was getting picked on by their other roos, and never showed any aggression. When I got him home, I kept in a pen for about an hour, which is how long it took for the fighting hens to do their thing through the pen wall (pecking at him and growling) before they settled down and seemed relaxed. When I let him out, they all charged him one by one and he very quickly shut them down but he was surprisingly careful about it. For the rest of that day, my feistiest hen was whiny and kept coming to me like she wanted my comfort. I think her new rank made her upset. He roosted with them that night and everything went fine.
Today is our third day and EVERYONE IS SOO HAPPY AND RELAXED!!! I say that in bold because the change is PALPABLE! I am so pleased!
Really, they were relaxed the very next day but the roo was still acting a little on edge. Now he's just loving his flock and I have caught him twice in their nesting boxes trying to encourage them to lay. They aren't laying yet but could be any time now.
All of my hens approach me now, nobody shows any anxiety or fear, and my fighters have totally chilled out. The roo is a calm boy who doesn't seek my attention but he has no issues me or the kids, or anyone I bring into the coop area.
I feel really lucky that this worked out so well, but I wanted to share because sometimes we need good news stories for encouragement.
This site has been so helpful to me and I love seeing everyone's chickens and coops and reading their stories. I hope my story can be useful to others as well!
Thank you!
