The chicken hormones have been raging this week at the Small House chicken coop as one Cochin hen after another has gone broody.
We added another small pasture area for the chickens to use.
We have no rooster, by choice, but the hens hormones tell the chickens its time to lay, brood and hatch out a baby anyway. In our case, no fertilized eggs has meant separation of chickens, chickens pecking chickens, full-time clucking and fights over the nest boxes and mean girls. Sigh.
One large garden area now becomes two areas.
Poor Snowball, the lowest chicken in the pecking order has taken more than her fair share of pecks from the mean girls. We have two nest boxes plenty enough for our four hens. But they all want the same box AND they want peace, quiet and alone time when they lay…no company allowed!
Gene is putting in the metal “T” posts.
So all together between the raging hormones and a lack of chicken tolerance, the mean girls have been quite nasty this month. This meanness and broodiness translates to timeout in the dog kennel for poor “less then all there in the mind department,” Snowball.
Chicken wire is fast becoming the material of choice around the Small House.
Why is it in the chicken world that the most delicate chickens has to have “time out” in the dog kennel for the other chickens bad deeds? My conclusion is when it comes to mean girls there is nothing that resembles fairness in chicken-ville.
The chicken barrier project is complete. Nothing fancy just a barrier.
After three weeks of time-out, separation and almost full-time supervision by humans we decided the time had come to add another chicken barrier to create a separate chicken space.
So using green metal “T” stakes and a another new roll of chicken wire, Gene strung the wire across the back-end of the garden as a temporary “safe place.” This gives us one more pasture to put a chicken where they are protected. And my raised garden beds do not get trashed either.
Never a dull moment in chicken-ville!
Small House homesteader and chicken keeper, Donna
Small House Big Sky Homestead 