Tuesday evening under the cloak of darkness and on the coldest windiest night of the year we added 2 new girls to the flock. Why under the cloak of darkness you might ask? Well, everything we were told by all the "experts" was to add a drop of essential oil to each of the birds in the flock, then put the new birds up on the roost when it is dark and when everyone wakes up in the morning, they all smell the same and no one is the wiser that anyone new has joined the group. Well, we are here to tell you that the "experts" are WRONG. Wednesday morning we woke up to 2 new birds huddled in the corner of the top roost. Any time they attempted to come down 2 of our older birds attacked them and chased them around until they ended back up on the roost. Buff, the meekest bird was never mean and they actually never moved away from her when she came around. So Wednesday, Thursday and Friday, Pat and Lisa went to the coop twice daily to give special attention to the new birds and make sure they were eating and drinking. By Saturday afternoon we had coaxed them down and by Sunday morning they even ventured out into the yard. Now, there are still chasing episodes and occasional flying of feather but I think we are making progress. As you can see from the photos, they like being king of the hill up on the water tank where no one can get to them. Only time will tell if they will ever be one big, happy family flock. So the moral of the story..........sometimes the "experts" are full of chicken poop.
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