Sweet treats for sweet hens....

Here are my sweet hens are eating their favorite treat right from my hand..  And if you were a chicken, what do you suppose your favorite treat would be.. above all else.?. If you guessed dried mealy worms you'd be right and I can order them  right from Amazon.  That's my lovely Maxine on the left.

I keep a bag in my apron pocket and when I let the hens free range a bit in the evening I can always keep them near by tossing a few mealy worms out after I "chuck -chuck"  That way I can keep an eye on them and get some weeding done as well.

Things are progressing better than I hoped although the old hens are still pretty bitchy..  I could see that the new hens were about to start laying and looking for somewhere to nest.  The old hens would not let them settle in the nesting boxes near the roost during the day.  So I took the door off this puppy crate and put it clear on the other side of the coop...added a couple golf balls as lures and sure enough one of the  new hens promptly laid her first egg.

But the old hens couldn't stand this new box being just for the new hens so they too had to jump in and lay their eggs there also..  Everybody is laying now in the puppy crate and they line up like women in a one-stall bathroom... Quite frequently the old hens still give the new hens a good hard whack just to show them who is still boss.  But no blood is drawn and that is good.

The last hurdle is the sleeping situation... I do get all of them into the roosting area at dusk but the old hens won't let the new hens on the roost.  There are 6 bars and plenty of room for everyone. It's a natural inclination for hens to roost as high as possible at night.  Not sure how I'll solve this little problem and may not be able to... At one time when I had 6 chickens, one was ostracized and spent her entire life sleeping on the bottom rung by herself.

But for now the new hens have to huddle in the old nesting boxes to sleep..  "Pecking order" is an incredibly ingrained instinct.  I may have to figure out a way to build an alternate  roost.  I tell you it is really tough trying to outwit chickens.....