Keeping Chickens Newsletter

bigger ones to eat. The BPR seem to dig the red tomatoes and cucumbers and they leave the lemon (yellow) tomatoes alone. So far so good and I hope the cat doesn't get in the mix, while they are working things out."

20th June "Well it's been a week since we put our two flocks together. They have their scuffles every now and then. To say that they have totally accepted each other would be telling a lie. The BPRs seem to single out the male in the RIRs. They each have their own "country" in the yard and the only ones who are aloud to cross the imaginary line is the humans. The only neutral ground is the coop and when we first put them in for the evening they have to get the pecking order just right.
We still have a lot of hiding places (in the yard) for the RIRs because of their size. Patrick put together another perch for those who like to get up high. In a few more months Patrick will have to decided which on of the males he will keep and we will set the other free with his Uncle Gordan's free range group (about 3 miles through the woods) from our house."

The RIRs getting used to their new home (the Barred Plymouth Rocks are in the shade behind the coop).

8th July "Just recently Patrick and I took most of the extra hiding places out of the yard. Reason 1 . . . in dry weather snakes will find cool places (and lucky the other day in the chicken yard when I turned over the tan tub, like I do every morning, it was a King Snake (non-poisonous). We've had a string of copper heads (poisonous) lately under our house (which is off the ground).