The Hen Pack Diaries #001

We initially started with three Lohman Browns (hybrid chickens for egg production) about 9 months ago which I named Beyonce, Kelly and Michelle (aka popluar American girl's group - Destiny's Child).

I have always wanted to have chickens in suburbia, it makes me feel like a farmer (don't laugh), you get hours of amusement, delicious eggs and I was using these girls to clear away the front lawn for my veggie garden by moving their pen every 3-4 week.

Everything was going great until Michelle died under mysterious circumstances, I found her dead when I came home, no sign of any struggle. This left Beyonce and Kelly, who became BFFs, Beyonce was the boss, she was brave, inquisitive and nothing scared her, and Kelly was a sweetheart, very docile, friendly and went along with whatever Beyonce wanted to do.

Beyonce on the left, looking fierce and Kelly on the right looking cute and cuddly.

Alas, a short while after losing Michelle, Beyonce was found dead in the morning when I went to feed them. I know what you're thinking “jeez, what did you do to your chickens”, I don't know what happened, I grew up with chickens and I'd never seen them drop like this. There is a big cat next door which the neighbors don't keep in at night – he is a lovely cat but often gets into our front yard where the chickens are....so maybe the chickens died from fright? Or maybe being hybrid layes the aren't as hardy? It will forever remain a mystery.

That leaves Kelly and due to all of the bad luck that Destiny's Child had, Fabian thought a new name would bring her a fresh start, meet “Fluffy Butt” aka “Fluffy” due to her lush, feathery behind- even though we don't have any kids, we named our chicken the kind of name often chosen by a small child - go figure.

Fluffy Butt (nee Kelly)

Chickens are not solitary animals, they need friends, so we bought Fluffy a friend. A friend who looked like her old friends, who looks like her, from the same place as her, but do you think she likes this friend?

Nope.

Hates her guts.

When you introduce new chickens into an existing flock they need to sort out the pecking order, something which can take a few minutes or a few days of isolated spats to sort it out.

Beyonce's death had changed Fluffy, from the fun loving friendly chicken we knew and loved, into a cold-blooded biatch.

Fluffy would chase around the new hen constantly pulling her feathers out and pecking at her head. This new hen was trying to escape Fluffy's wrath but she couldn't, we tried keeping the new hen in a crate next to Fluffy, and introducing them to each other multiple times in different scenarios such as free ranging around the garden - but no success. So at the moment they are in separate pens because I don't know enough about chicken conflict resolution.

Maybe it was too soon, maybe I should've got two chickens, I mean surely she couldn't bash up two chickens at once...or maybe she can? I feel like I don't even know her anymore.

The death of Destiny's Child and the above incident has lead to us constructing Alcatraz, so that we can purchase some additional chooks and then everyone can get along and be a big happy family (yay!).

The cat next door doesn't venture into the backyard, as there are scarier things back there, like weeds, undies on the clothes line, impenetrable fences and oh yeah... two big Rottweilers. Hopefully this pen really is Alcatraz and the dogs are super chill with their new feathered homies.

xo

thegirlwhogrew