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Bet you are all wondering  how Hildy is getting along…

Well, things have calmed down.  You know that phrase “pecking order”?  I never really understood it until watching my flock adjust to a new member.  As you know, we added Hildy to our flock shortly before Christmas.  At the time, I had been working with the idea that if you added a chicken to the henhouse in the middle of the night, the bird would wake up with her and think she had been there all along.  I got that from a novel, and it turns out that the idea is fiction.

Hildy was harassed from the start.  Pecked, jumped, feather-rippin’ meanness! The worst perpetrator was Rosey, a small chicken who had never seemed overly aggressive before.  Rosey went after Hildy with such vigor that I had to race out to the henhouse in the morning to let the chickens out so that Hildy had some room to GET AWAY from Rosey.  I think it might have been because Rosey was already at the bottom and wanted to make it frickin’ clear that she did not intend to stay there.  Oh dear.

After reading around a bit about flock integration, I found the theory that you must introduce the new member to your flock with supervision.  The idea is that the flock has a pecking order and YOU are at the top.  You are like the rooster or chicken god or something and you must show approval for your new baby.  What this meant was standing out in the yard near Hildy and shooing away the aggressors with firm “No!” and maybe a feigned kick.  Did it work?  Uhmmmm sort of.

Pecking order decides who gets what first.  It is a strange thing too as in my flock, Atilla is now the largest AND she gets the first choice for food.  Isn’t that symbolism for the world?  The strongest who need the least get the most.  That makes Atilla a nasty American.  When I bring treats to the backyard, she stands nearest to me.  Then Agnes, then Rosey, and then poor Hildy sort of circles and darts in to grab what she can.  Here is a picture that shows their usual formation:

 As you can see, Atilla keeps Agnes close by her.  Rosey (with her butt to us) is next nearest.  Hildy is just watching Rosey to see what will happen.  Will she be able to eat some corn or will she just get jumped again?

I try to thwart this problem by spreading two piles of corn.  Then at least Hildy can have a better opportunity to find something.

This is what happens when she gets too close to me, the Chicken Goddess who bears chickeny treats:

 

 

I know it is blurry, but you get the idea.  Atilla is putting Hildy in her place… again.  I feel so guilty for bringing Hildy into a violent environment, but I guess it is the way of nature.

It has improved.  Hildy is only harassed when there is food involved.  Other than that, she seems to enjoy relative peace and belonging in the flock.  They all peck around next to each other during the day.  She doesn’t seem too traumatized.  

And I do think that Hildy is basically happy.

She is a lovely and sweet chicken.  She is very gentle, as well as beautiful, so in a medieval world, she is the perfect princess.

In: Chickens Are Super Fabulous, Defies Categorization | | #