Chick Cliques

Pecking order.  A curious thing.  Chickens, horses, and of course, humans. 

 

We have watched the speckled chicken fall from the top of the order and she now stays outside the coop under the steps.  I even clipped her wings but she still escaped (of course when you free range throughout the day that will happen). 

 

 

 

According to the squatting, we have a new ruler, the floppy comb.  Of course, I am the one with the food bucket and thus will always be alpha.  I hope to be a kind and fair queen...sorry, I digress. 

 

One of the chickens on the low end of the pecking order has decided it is much more fun hanging around with the goats, even to eat with. 

Wait for me!

 

I am sure this is just a phase and she will get tired of their frolicking and food and return to her kind soon enough.  After all, we are all intrigued by the new and different in the beginning. 

Is she riding Brie??

The End(s)

Goat Bloat

Unable to be at home in the day and watch Brie and Molly as closely as I would like did give me an advantage to see that they, especially Brie, was developing goat bloat.  It scared me.  I wracked my brain trying to figure out what was going on.  We all knew that no chicken food was to be available because of the calcium content and that fact that goats love it, so the chickens were let out to free range and their food was out in the yard with them.  Maybe I was just giving them too much grain too soon.  They are being weaned off the bottle.  I sat out a bowl of baking soda overnight to see if that would help them.  They were active, playful and hungry so I didn't feel it was an urgent matter.  But, what was causing it?  I had to figure this out. 

It just happened the following afternoon that I walked out to find Brie eating the rabbit food that Rocky would dump from his bowl as he jumped around in his cage.

We fenced the rabbit shelter off and the issue seems to be resolved.  Whew!