The Littlees are very happy to be allowed to roam in the Big Girls area. The area is so large, and U shaped, htat it's easy for them to scratch around without the Big Girls realising they are there (or so the Big Girls can pretend they haven't realised, so they don't have to do anything about it). It's not so great the other way around.
When the Big Girls invade the Littlees area, there is nothing the Littlees can do. Lotti (Exchequer Leghorn) did try and peck Milly (Vicious Old Bag, Cream Legbar) to get her away from the food, but Milly just pecked back and Lotti ran away.
I made a small gap in the fence (where two runs of netting meet) that was big enough to let the Littlees through, but small enought o hinder the Biggees going the other way. That worked well. For a while.
This morning, Lotti and Poppy were scratching around, in the Big Girls (BGs) area, in sight of the BGs. Everything was fine. A little while later, the BGs had free ranged round to the Gap. Roobarb decided she was going through. She's not a small girl. She squeezed and she squozed, and then she squoooozed, and eventually popped through. Milly followed. Custard, who is rather large and buxom, tried and failed. Later still, we saw that FLorence (Florence! She's huge, how did she get in there?!) had joined them. Custard tried again, and failed again.
Lotti and Poppy could see that their home had been invaded. They couldn't work out how to get back. I left everyone to it. Half an hour later, Lotti and POppy were still looking bothered, so I went and made a gap in a different part of the fence so they could get in. Then I kept an eye on things.
3 Big Girls to 2 Littlees is still too much in favour of the BGs, but it's the best I can do without more manual interference. I'll leave them like that for a while, until I have to go out.
I'd have preferred to have waited a couple more weeks tohave started this, until the LIttlees were a bit more mature and Tilda wasn't mouting so much. Trouble is I've no idea what the weather will bring, and I'd very much like to get them to the stage where they can all sleep together.
