Pearl and Her Babies

This is an update on Pearl and her Babies. You can read about how we got the three mismatched chicks here. Who would ever thought keeping chickens happy could be such a job?

Cast of Characters:

Pearl – The white hen. She’s a white leghorn full sized hen. Someone had bought all the baby pullets and left ONE so we bought that one . . and that’s Pearl, on the left.

Goldie – The silky had pasty butt and was going to die so the lady at Tractor Supply gave her to me to see if I could fix her. Gold is in the middle.

Bell – A buff brahma cochin bantam. She was so cute that I wanted her so we got her. She’s on the right.

Since we got them all at the same time, they bonded. Pearl was just a tad bigger but has grown to be quite a bit bigger (and laid her first egg yesterday) and she took over the job as mother hen.

Pearl, Goldie and Bell live in the coop with the four other Silkies. There were 6 Silky eggs that hatched after the dogs killed their mothers. We gave one rooster to a friend and a snake killed one so now there are four.

You cannot simply add new chickens to an established group of chickens.  Pecking order is real and anything that upsets the pecking order is very similar to war! There can actually be bloodshed and . . death! So, we put the two groups in adjoining fenced areas where they can squawk at each other through the fence, talk about who’s the boss  .. who’s the biggest, baddest chicken, get all those details worked out and then we can put them together and all is well . . in theory . . it never works that easily though.

We had 12 bantams that needed to be combined with the 4 bantams and Pearl and her babies. They had been next to each other, bonding, for several weeks. I needed that coop and run for another batch of chickens so it was time to combine them. We put the 12 bantams in the bantam coop and Pearl went nuts! I guess she was protecting her babies but she was going for blood with those new chickens. 

The Dominique chickens are on the north end of the chicken condo and they’re real docile and Pearl already knew them through the condo fence so I said “Let’s put Pearl in with the Dominiques”. After all, she’s a full sized chicken and not a bantam. Oh, my . . it was sad!  Have you ever seen a heartbroken chicken? She was so miserable. She sat on the top floor of the Dominique coop and looked into the south side of the chicken condo, the side where her babies were. For the first couple of days, they sat inside and looked at her but they eventually went outside and began getting on with life. Isn’t that the way it always happens? Kids move on . . mom sits home and cries!

After a week or so, I told Vince . . I don’t even know if she’s eating or drinking. She just sits on the second floor and looks over into the other side, hoping to catch a glimpse of her babies. So we put her back in there with them and she hasn’t been mean to the other chickens.

But . . Bell seems to have gotten a bit of independence without Pearl around! This was taken last night at bed time for the chickens. Bell is up on the second floor roost . . all by herself!   You can see the chickens on the north side of the coop up on their roost for the night. That’s where Pearl was sitting . . day and night . . watching over her babies in the south side of the coop.

Pearl and Goldie are right where they always were.

I don’t know why Goldie is always behind Pearl. Sleeping on that end of a chicken is not what I would consider a good idea but . . I’m not the one making that decision!

I truly was surprised at the bond between those three chickens and how heartbroken Pearl was to be separated from them. I really don’t think she would have survived if we hadn’t put them back together.

Speaking of blended families . . we were speaking of that, weren’t we?  🙂  In the photo below, you will see how the other chickens in that coop sleep.

They’ve probably all been together for about a month now. The 12 “new” bantams all crowd into one nesting box. The four bantams that hatched from the original hens all sleep in another nesting box. No way will they cross over and mix together . . probably forever!  They all get along on the playground but they are not going to sleep together.  

Who knew chickens could be so weird?