Meeting the New Girls

We've been down to a couple of chickens for a while now. Not a great position to be in for flock animals, especially as chickens have a habit of being fine one day, and really really not the next. We wanted to wait till winter was more or less done to get another couple, and with the current situation in the world, then wanted to get them before any potential lockdown. The timing is actually pretty good with me working fr home as well.

And so we have Lagertha (the white on the left - she's a Lavender Splash and should develop some lavender colour feathers on her neck), and Siggy (the black and ginger on the right, with the fluffy head adornment - she's a Skyline, and might, being a part Cream Legbar hybrid, produce blue-green eggs).

The initial introduction was better than any we've done before. Lexie, as top chook, seemed pretty relaxed and just checked them out. Freya was a little more antsy, as the second in commands always are, but gave them both a couple of very light pecks to put them in their place, then wandered off. 

But after the old girls had been free-ranging for a bit, once back in the grumbling started. Mainly Freya, but Lexie started joining in, so I went out to our contingency. I'd already popped one of the chicken houses, with it's wire run, out on the lawn, so they're moved into that. The last time the two new chooks, Lexie and (sadly departed) Scarlet, were ridiculously fearful. I think these two might be a bit more bold, though they've stayed in the shelter of the house most of the afternoon - but having been reared indoors, all that open space is probably a bit freaky.

But this allows the old girls to forage around them, we can feed them either side of the mesh, and spend a week or two socialising, before trying to move them all into the main run together again. So it's still probably the most relaxed flock-augmentation we've had so far.

Oh, and they've already had a fox visitor (in the extras, they've got to get used to that - this fox, in one of the photos I got, you can see her teats very clearly, so there's a den with kits somewhere).