Boy - did I make a series of mistakes in judgement! Thank goodness I was able to course correct and all is well (at least for now).
Yesterday's blog had me bringing home new pullets (4 younger ones approximately 3 weeks old with a question mark and 3 older ones approximately 5-6 weeks old...). I had kept them all together in a dog cage within the larger coop over night.
This morning, it was my plan to "introduce" the older pullets to the larger flock (8 chickens all approximately a year old). BIG MISTAKE - Wayyyyyyy too soon and very poor judgement on my part.
When I came to open up the coop this morning and let the chickens out (our morning ritual; our chickens are currently free range chickens without any fencing), I found that they were hanging around inside the coop more than usual. Because I'm impatient by nature (and didn't want to wait for my birds to go outside and start running around and foraging like they usually do), I decided to take out the larger pullets one by one and set them on the ground.
It was then that I realized things were bad. My otherwise sweet 1 year old birds started attacking the pullets (especially the white one); it was quite vicious really. I quickly started kicking the larger birds out of the coop and started scooping up my pullets to put them back into the cage -- with one exception -- the white pullet. While the other 2 pullets let me get them, the white one did not. It kept running from me and eventually ran underneath a closet of sorts that Ed built to house chicken supplies within the coop; he had built the closet on a pallet and the white chick ran under the pallet. I could not get it out and was afraid I never would.
I had to noodle this series of events over and figure out how to approach things better going forward. I also needed to figure out how I was going to get the white pullet and bring her back into the fold.
I did some internet searching and determined I needed to wait until the pullets were nearly the same size as my yearlings (this will likely be somewhere between 8-12 weeks of age). I also had to give it a week or two where they were separate and yet together within the coop so as they call all get to know one another.
Armed with my new knowledge, I got a second dog crate from the barn. I used this cage to transfer the older pullets into as they would not be able to fit through the "slats" and escape. The younger pullets I kept in the other dog crate which was wrapped around the bottom of the cage so that they could not get through slats and escape.
Separating the pullets served two purposes: 1) Now my older pullets could be viewed and have protected "interactions" with my yearlings within the coop (because the "wrapping" wouldn't be in the way) and 2) it would allow all my pullets to grow and not get over crowded within a single cage that would soon have become too small...
When the younger pullets are big enough such that they cannot go through the cage slats, we will remove the wrapping so that they too have a better view of the coop and those within the coop and vise versa.
As to how the white bird got brought back into the fold: I had decided to lock all my yearlings out of the coop in an attempt to lure the white pullet out of hiding. This didn't work (I'd go out and check periodically) UNTIL I had the larger pullets separated and in a cage without wrapping around the bottom. Once this was done, the next time I came to check, the white pullet was out by their cage and trying to get in; they were all talking to one another.... The white pullet was still too afraid of me to allow me to catch it and put it in (can you blame her!); however, with the use of a stick, I was able to prompt her to a door I quickly opened and then shut.
So for now, all is good and it will just take longer than originally anticipated to get everyone acclimated. I'm very lucky. All kinds of lessons learned.
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