Feathers flying...

We introduced our new chickens to the free-range lifestyle today. And that means encountering two big, bad bruiser chickens around the garden. There were definitely two distinct camps: the new chickens and the rest. The new ones hung around the one side of the house the whole day, although they did seem to be pecking at a variety of food sources. Anytime they came too close to one of the older birds, there was a bit of a squabble and the little ones would lose a few feathers from their back. There didn't seem to be any major injuries, and there's plenty of space for them to run away, so hopefully no harm done - they just get used to the hierarchy.

This evening the new ones didn't seem too keen on squeezing into the hen house with the other two (besides the fact that they probably didn't really know that it was their new house!). We caught two of them and inserted them through the door. The other one went missing - we had to search the garden before we found it huddled under a bush. It got pulled out gently and pushed through the door as well. We didn't hear any squawking from inside, so hopefully it's too dark for them to fight in there. We'll find out in the morning if we still have 5 chooks!