Can't We All Just Get Along?

There’s a Chicken in my Kitchen –

and Another in my Bathroom!

by Sharon Gaughan, PCLF Education Program Director

Some people have a hard time leaving their work behind at the end of the work day.  I’ve always been one of those people, but now that tendency has reached a new level for me.  For a while now, I’ve been bringing one of the Learning Farm chickens home with me – and now for the past week, I’ve been bringing two chickens home to roost. 

Here’s the story…

If you’ve been following this blog, then you already know:

• The Learning Farm adopted out most of our previous flock of 2-year-old hens last fall.
• About a month prior to that, I selected two hens from the flock to be our Children’s Garden chickens:  Rhubarb (a Rhode Island Red) and Rutabaga (a Buff Orpington).
• In November, we purchased 100 Bovans Brown hens from Sandhill Family Farms to replace our previous flock.  These hens were less than a year old at the time.

Shortly after getting the Bovans Brown hens settled into the winter hen house and chicken yard, I attempted to introduce the Children’s Garden chickens into the new flock.  I didn’t feel that two hens in a small chicken tractor would be able to keep each other warm enough through the coldest winter nights to come.  But I also knew that introducing two chickens into an established flock was not likely to go well.  Turns out, it went half well.

Bovans Browns are not a breed, but a hybrid – a cross between a Rhode Island Red and (depending on the source you read) either a Rhode Island White or a White Leghorn.  Rhubarb (the Children's Garden Rhode Island Red) seemed to be accepted into the flock without much fanfare – perhaps because she’s about the same size as the Bovans Brown hens, and not that different in color (Rhubarb is definitely a darker, richer reddish brown – but still reddish brown).

Poor Rutabaga, however, was not so lucky.  Her coloration is very different from the others, and she is small for a Buff Orpington – therefore smaller than the Bovans Brown hens.  They picked on her from the start, so she tended to keep herself somewhat separated from the other hens.

It wasn’t long before we noticed that one of the Bovans Brown hens was also being picked on.  Many of her feathers had been picked off her back, neck, and the shoulder area of her wings.  As she was part of the original flock, it's uncertain why she was being singled out.

I had read about “chicken saddles” and ordered one for this Bovans Brown hen (whom we later named “Radish”).  A chicken saddle covers a hen’s back and helps protect those feathers. Unfortunately, the wings and neck remain exposed to the pecking abuse.  Radish doesn’t seem to mind wearing the chicken saddle, and it affords the additional advantage of helping to keep her a bit warmer (a concern with her lack of feathers) – so it definitely helped, but didn’t fully solve the problem.

Between Anya and myself, we made sure that Rutabaga and Radish were briefly removed from the flock a minimum of twice each day, so that we could ensure that they were getting at least some food and water – as well as getting a bit of a break from the others.  They would both come running whenever they saw either of us, knowing that they were about to get some special treatment.

This went for a few weeks and seemed to be working okay, but then the winter temperatures took a nose-dive.  With the colder temperatures, the majority of the chickens were spending the majority of their time in the henhouse and very little of their time in the more spacious chicken yard.  With their closer proximity to each other, and boredom that comes from being inside all day, their bullying intensified. 

Rutabaga was fairly good at staying clear of and/or dodging the pecking of the other hens, but Radish tended to just hunker down and take it (which likely explains why Radish was missing feathers and Rutabaga wasn't).  Radish also tended to stay outside more despite the cold, no doubt to escape the others – but having lost so many of her feathers, even with the chicken saddle, this extreme cold seemed to be hard on her and I would often feel her shivering when I picked her up.

One day, after watching three hens gang up on Radish at the same time, I couldn’t take it anymore.  So, I started bringing Radish into my office during the day, and home with me at night.  I carried her back and forth in a large dog crate, and that’s where she slept at night – but if I was nearby I also let her wander semi-freely in my work office or home kitchen.  For the most part, this was an acceptable temporary arrangement.

After Radish was removed from the flock, we continued to ensure that Rutabaga was getting her twice daily food, water, and break – and it seemed that she was managing to hold her own within the flock – that is, until last Sunday (February 3).  I came in to work to do my usual afternoon “chicken chores.” I looked for Rutabaga to come running, but I didn’t see her inside the hen house.  I started my chicken chores in the hen house, looking for her all the while.

After finishing some of my chores, I walked outside to look for her in the chicken yard.  In the area right outside the two chicken doors, there was not a single hen to be found.  Clearly, all the chickens were keeping inside on this cold and windy winter day.  Or were they?  I let myself into the side-gate of the chicken yard, and turned the corner to see something that truly broke my heart.  

There was Rutabaga, standing all alone on one leg, with her body hunched and her feathers fluffed up against the wind – the only hen outside on this bitterly cold day.  My guess is either she chose the cold over being picked on – or perhaps she wanted to come back inside and the other chickens wouldn’t let her.  I wondered how many hours she had stood out there.

I picked her up and brought her into the hen house, placing her on a bale of straw.  She simply laid down, feathers fluffed up, shivering.  I seriously wondered if we would lose her.  I felt I had no choice but to bring Rutabaga home with me, to join Radish in my kitchen on that cold Sunday afternoon. 

Fortunately and surprisingly, once Rutabaga warmed up and ate some feed, she bounced back quickly – and after an hour or so she seemed fine.

For the rest of that day, I worried about and tried to decide what I would do come nightfall.  Despite the fact that Radish knows what it’s like to picked on, she still sometimes will pick on Rutabaga.  I didn’t think that it would work to have them spend the night together in that dog carrier.  Where else in my house could a chicken safely sleep?

After much thought and several rejected ideas, I finally decided to clean out my bathroom of anything breakable.  Then I took some of the straw out of the dog carrier, placed it in my bathtub, and set Rutabaga down upon the straw.  She immediately scratched at the straw a bit, made herself a comfy nest, then settled down to sleep.  Problem solved, for now.

It’s a week later, and the temperatures have warmed a bit – but we’ve also gotten our first big snows.  And guess what chickens dislike even more than cold temperatures!  Yep!  Snow!

I’ve been encouraging our flock to spend time outdoors by spreading old straw over the snow just outside their chicken doors, and then scattering some feed and/or scratch.  That does work to get as many as half of them outside for part of the day, but they’ll only venture as far out as I’ve scattered the straw – and we only have so much old straw to scatter.  Not to mention the fact that each time it snows, the straw gets covered and I need to start all over again!

So until the flock starts spreading themselves out by spending more time outdoors in their chicken yard again, it looks like I’ll continue to have a chicken in my kitchen and another in my bathroom.  While Radish isn’t the first chicken that I’ve ever had sleeping in my kitchen, Rutabaga is definitely the first chicken that I’ve had sleeping in my bathroom!  My cat is adapting.

At least this weekend, with the relatively warm temperatures, Rutabaga and Radish spent most of the daylight hours in my backyard – in a snow-free area under an eave and sheltered by the bushes.  They seemed to have a great time scratching and dust bathing, and soaking in a bit of sun, when the sun was shining.

I realize that the pecking order in a chicken flock is the natural order of things, but I still want to ask the hens, “Can’t we all just get along?”