Keeping Chickens Newsletter

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Reason 2 . . . the RIRs are getting bigger (they are almost the same sizes as the BPRs and they are starting to fly). Reason 3 . . . during the day the BPRs take turns flying over the yard fence to chase grasshoppers (leaving the RIRs to the yard and dealing with the 1 BPR that was elected somehow to stay behind and give them a run for their money).

Do they really eat the grasshoppers or do they just "play" with them? I've noticed that when one get a hold of a grasshopper, they spend more time running from the others (like watching football).

This week the BPRs are 15 wks old and the RIRs are 8 wks old.
Gre-Gre (cat) will walk with La-La (dog) and I to the chicken yard. She gives them space (but keeps a close eye on any of them that are not paired together) and La-La has gotten braver and is walking in the yard with me. Sean (my husband) says that I am the "mother hen".

The chickens are slowly accepting the bulls in the Pecan Field. They found out that if we feed the bulls, they have a chance to get some left over corn and other grains once the bulls leave the feeding trough."

Another Method Of Mixing Flocks
Another 'Soft Release' method - this comes from Linda

29th June "I have a situation that is something I have never seen in all the years I've been around chickens, and for sure never in raising our own.

Seven hens, one or two days old, purchased. Raised together, on ''starter lay mash"........introduced to scratch at 2 or 3 weeks old, and yes calcium/gravel/grit added in that same time frame. Still on starter lay mash too. A month and a half now. Very healthy looking, and seemed to grow faster than the first ones we purchased in early April.

The 7 lived quite happily together in the house on the heating pad, when they were very very little, graduated to larger cages, to much larger and at a month old, put in even larger housing, and on the enclosed porch. This is how we introduce them gradually from inside, to outside, to the real outside, by degrees.

This method has never failed.

So today was graduation day to go to the main enclosure/coops/hen house, etc.

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