The New Girls

After the last couple of times we've introduced new chickens to the flock, with our large run segregated, giving everyone a chance to get used to each other, and that all going rather smoothly.... Today was a little different.

This is Freya and Arya (who are distinguishable as Freya is a little bigger, with a slightly redder comb, so a teeny bit older). We moved them in, but Blue, one of the old girls, has reacted really badly to her territory being invaded. We tried mixing them, and Skye simply made sure they knew she was top of the pecking order. Blue in the meantime avoided them and crowed. Never seen quite as OTT and hysterical a reaction before, presumably she's feeling threatened.

All resulted in the new girls being moved into a temporary run on the lawn, their third pick-up-and-move, which seemed to traumatise them a bit. They'll be getting plenty of attention as we take things a bit more slowly with integration from now. More stressful than it needed to be. Especially given how pretty the two new Speckledys are (and they should look fab once the combs grow in and so on).

Saw more of Jerry today (in much better light than yesterday) but the new birds were always going to win out for the blip.