When should I integrate my chicks & mama in with the rest of the flock? I’ve been puzzling over that for days. It’s kinda tricky to do for several reasons. Because chickens are mean. The older hens/roos will peck at the babies. The mama will stand up to the bullies, but she’s only 1 & there are 12 chicks & 20 other chickens. The chicks are big enough the big hens won’t kill & eat them, but they will peck at them & run them off. Secondly chicks can’t eat layer pellets. The pellets are too large & contain too much calcium which is supposed to be bad for their kidneys. And lastly we don’t have much cover for the babies in the enclosure, and I’m afraid they’ll be eaten by predators.
Imagine my surprise (& horror) when I got out to the chicken pen & saw the screen was off the little coop, and the mama & half the chicks were out on the ground. (Apparently my son had not put the screen back on the little coop securely enough & it fell out.) The rest of the chicks flew out of the coop upon seeing me headed their way. I guess they do associate me with treats. I fretted over how I would get them back in the coop, because I was not ready to put them in the big coop. And I couldn’t try to chase them all down, so I decided to lean the screen against the coop in hopes they would be able to get back in on their own.
After spending about 30 minutes with them, I was about to head in when the mama hen hopped up in the coop & called the babies up to her. In no time flat all 12 of them made it safely into the coop. One even jumped into the coop from the ground – about a 4 foot distance! I guess I was worried for nothing. After a quick headcount to make sure everyone was present, I put the screen in & decided to let my chickens out to free-range for a bit while I checked on the garden.
Of course, they made a beeline for my freshly planted asparagus bed, and after shooing them out of there they decided they’d join me in the big garden. After shooing them away multiple times, I finally just put them up. I am still a little fatigued from my illness earlier this week, so I was ready to go back inside.
On my way back in I spied something on the ground that I had not seen before. At first I thought it was dog poop, but it looked hairy. Dog poop isn’t hairy – or at least my dog’s poop isn’t. It then occurred to me that it might be owl excrement. I toed it a few times, then cautiously picked it up. It definitely wasn’t dog poop, so I took it over to the fence & began to tear it apart.
The first pellet was empty so that was disappointing, but the second one contained a bone fragment. I hit pay dirt on the third one when I found the cat claw. Yes, a cat claw!! How big must that dang owl be to carry off a cat! Though it does explain why the stray cats we had around here have disappeared. I think I owe that hawk an apology for blaming it for my chicken losses.
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