At the allotment our pens are divided with netting. The permanent residents, our breeding girls, have the largest pen and have 2 coops to choose from. They swap around all the time. The dinner girls have a separate pen with 2 coops; the dinner boys (one of whom will be our replacement cockerel) have a separate pen and a large shed.
Our original plan was to wait until we were down to 1 cockerel and the two (maybe 3 at a push) dinner girls we wanted to keep to extend our breeding flock, and then to let them all free range together giving everone the choice of four coops and a shed to sleep in.
The Chicken of Fate has made us bring forward part of these arrangements. Today DH moved the netting which separated the two pens of girls so they could share.
We had discussed this, and I wasn't too keen originally. I was concerned that it meant upsetting the status quo for all the dinner chickens, even those that we weren't going to be keeping long term. If I'm honest, it also makes me a bit....can't think of the word.....squeamish; the physical separation between the Breeders and the Dinners helps me deal with the fate of the dinners, and I'm not entirely sure how I will cope next time some of them are due to go.
The reason we did it in the end is that it should be easier for the Chicken of Fate. There will be a fair bit of confusion, and neither side will know that she is new to everyone. It also means she won't have to go through one set of hen-pecking in the Dinner pen, and then another round of it when we merge the pens.
It's a shame that she will take one of the available places for the Dinner Girls. Still, it's not her fault; and I'm sure I will love her as much as I love the others. Although not as much as I love Norman. No Allotment chook can ever mean as much to me as she does.
Our original plan was to wait until we were down to 1 cockerel and the two (maybe 3 at a push) dinner girls we wanted to keep to extend our breeding flock, and then to let them all free range together giving everone the choice of four coops and a shed to sleep in.
The Chicken of Fate has made us bring forward part of these arrangements. Today DH moved the netting which separated the two pens of girls so they could share.
We had discussed this, and I wasn't too keen originally. I was concerned that it meant upsetting the status quo for all the dinner chickens, even those that we weren't going to be keeping long term. If I'm honest, it also makes me a bit....can't think of the word.....squeamish; the physical separation between the Breeders and the Dinners helps me deal with the fate of the dinners, and I'm not entirely sure how I will cope next time some of them are due to go.
The reason we did it in the end is that it should be easier for the Chicken of Fate. There will be a fair bit of confusion, and neither side will know that she is new to everyone. It also means she won't have to go through one set of hen-pecking in the Dinner pen, and then another round of it when we merge the pens.
It's a shame that she will take one of the available places for the Dinner Girls. Still, it's not her fault; and I'm sure I will love her as much as I love the others. Although not as much as I love Norman. No Allotment chook can ever mean as much to me as she does.
