I waited to tell this story till now because I wasn't sure how things were going to play out. Now that things have sorted themselves out, I can share it without the cliffhanger component getting in the way.
A few weeks ago, I realized that having only two hens just did not make much sense. Especially when one of them was in a deep seated and intractable broody vortex of annoying proportions.
So I went in search of some young pullets on the chicken keepers Facebook page.
I was very fortunate to find someone who had some two month old Cuckoo Marans. I have always been interested in them as I'm told they lay some of the darkest brown eggs. Though I do think there are two strains of the breed and one lays darker than the other. Only time will tell which ones I have. [September or October for these I think.]
I have a nice lightweight smallish rabbit cage that I kept the littles in for the first week.
I moved them in and out of the coop every day, over the grassy areas and in the shade and generally fiddled with them endlessly. So that the other two hens could get used to them.
Once in a while I let them out with the other hens to see how things would go. Turns out, not well. Lucy, (the broody hen) had taken great offense at these two innocuous chicks and chased them and pecked them violently enough to remove a few feathers within seconds of them being out of their cage. So back in they went. This testing went on for 10 days or so. At one point, I put HER in the cage for a few days and let the little ones roam around and get their very important dust baths and get used to the run and coop.
Needless to say, she was not amused. Neither was I.
Esmerelda tolerates them, though she does let them know who's who in the pecking order, but she was in no way overly aggressive.
Eventually, I wearied of Lucy's shenanigans and called my friend T. and asked her if she would like to have Lucy on her farm. She came and got her and solved part of my problem. The part that isn't solved is now I only have three chickens and really, I should have at least four. I will see what I can do about that in the coming weeks. Right now, I am grateful to have a peaceful flock again. Even though they are not great chums yet, as the young ones get bigger things will even out. At least that's been the way of it in the past.
Having chickens is a funny kind of thing. The 'status quo' is a short lived state. And I need to be a little more proactive about finding ways to add to the flock.
Anyway.... here are the new chickens, now about three months old.
Since they are sisters, I named them Rachel and Leah. Rachel is the smaller one.
Every day we practice social nearness. I catch each one and have a quiet cuddle so they won't be flighty when they grow up.
Esmerelda is being pretty cool about it. Though I think she's lonely at the top and misses having a peer of her own age around. She is VERY good to let me pick her up and hold her.
I don't miss Lucy. I just have to be honest. I have a very low tolerance these days for cranky pants creatures of any kind. And if you can't get your act together, you are moved on to different pastures.
(How come I'm still around?)
Very good question for which I do not have a good answer at the moment. But if I were you, I wouldn't push me to delve into it too deeply. Unless you would like to join Cranky Lucy out on the farm.
(I retract my question.)
Wise move.
