Anyone who has raised chickens knows how hard it can be to integrate new chickens into an existing flock, especially ONE bright white chicken in a sea of dark feathered friends or maybe I should say, enemies.
We decided our Silkies would probably accept her without trying to kill her, so that's where she went. For the first couple of weeks, we kept her alone and then put her in with the Silkies and separated them by wire so they could get acquainted. Once the wire was removed, all was well in the world.
We built a separate coop for our Silkies after learning the hard way that our big girls would attempt to eat them if we put them all together...theirs is the little one on the left.
We often open the doors and let all the girls, big and small, outside to roam around. So far, they all get along when allowed to roam together. They do keep to their own territory though; it reminds me of tween boys and girls-all the Silkies on one side and the Big Girls on the other!
Little One did manage to make her way into the Big Girls' coop one afternoon and a beastly Ameraucana decided to attack her beautiful red comb. She was probably jealous-women can be so difficult. Thankfully, Travis was outside and was able to rescue her. He brought her inside, I washed up her comb, put some antibiotic ointment on it and off she went.
Needless to say, she has never entered the Big Girls' coop again & the incident confirmed that she'd never be able to be housed with the big girls as I had hoped maybe she'd be able to do one day. At this point, I'm sure if I were to show her her own reflection in a mirror, she'd swear it wasn't so. I'm certain she thinks she looks just like her coop mates. We'll just let her go on believing.
