As much as I like the idea of a closed flock – one that is raised together and never exposed to other chickens – there are times when I do add a hen into my established group. I do this with trepidation, as it is rarely easy to integrate a new chicken into a mature flock. Chickens establish a pecking order. Once it is in place you shouldn’t notice it much. Closely observe your flock and you’ll notice subtle body language. Perhaps when a treat is put down the highest status hen will get it first and keep others away. You’ll see some hens always at the outskirts and others keeping a clear distance from birds that they don’t get along with. Where chickens roost is determined by the pecking order. Bring in a new chicken and the established routine is upset. The hens lowest on the pecking order will challenge the newcomer to see if they can move up. Your dominant hen will want to ensure that she keeps her place. Everyone will tell the new hen to go away. The behavior can range from pinning the new hen down and pecking at her head (which can kill), to chest thumping, chasing, and blood letting. Less severe reactions to a new hen will be to pull feathers and keep her away from food. Even if you have only one or two hens and you want to add a “friend” your chickens won’t see it that way and drama will ensue.

That said, it is possible to increase your flock size by adding a mature hen to the group. This past weekend I had to bring Beulah, a Black Star, back into the fold. After starting out her life here, she left as a young pullet to be part of the nursing home group. When it became clear that Beulah was pecking too severely at her flock mates I decided to take her back. In this case I didn’t have to worry about bringing in disease, so no quarantine was necessary. I just had to integrate her with her old chickmates.

I have no idea if she remembered the coop or the hens. I think that she at least recognized this place, as she looked comfortable and familiar with the surroundings and seemed to know where to go. But, before she could explore and meet the Ladies, I put her into the rabbit hutch so that she could see the flock and they could see her.

The next day I put her into the storage side of the Little Barn. There’s a screen door so everyone could eyeball each other. Beulah felt comfortable enough to lay an egg.

Since there was no chest-thumping and challenges across the screen door, I moved on to the next stage which was to put the new hen in the same space with the flock. I let the Ladies out onto the lawn, and then brought Beulah to join them. It’s always best when integrating a new hen into a flock to do it on neutral turf away from the coop, and in a space large enough so that the hens can make grand gestures, but have plenty of space to move away from each other.

It’s also good to have distracting things to eat. The hens were so excited about seeing the ground and green (albeit frozen) grass, that they began grazing and ignored Beulah. For awhile she was able to eat alongside of the others

But then the other hens noticed the interloper in their midst. They told her to go away and she moved off.

I didn’t see severe aggression, so I tossed some scratch grains into the pen and invited everyone in. Once again, Beulah was able to join the flock until the food ran out. Once the grain was eaten up, she was relegated to the outskirts, but no one attacked her, which was very good behavior on the part of the Ladies.

Things were going well, but as it grew dark, I put Beulah back into the rabbit hutch. I didn’t want her to be crowded in with the others in the morning before I opened the pop-door. As much as they were getting along in a large area, I didn’t think that things would go so well if they were all confined to the coop.

The next morning I let Beulah back out. The hens mingled. Misty, the highest status hen, made sure that Beulah stayed at the fringes. It started to lightly snow. Everyone wanted to go inside. Misty had no desire to accept Beulah into the coop. Beulah stood at the ramp, looking in. I was pleased that she wasn’t being chased away from the entrance, and she wasn’t huddling in a corner (as some rejected hens do.) But, she was getting snowed on, and so I tucked her back into the hutch. Then I went into coop. Although the Ladies look healthy and in fine feather, and the flock dynamics appeared to be peaceful, the time spent watching Beulah interact with them raised some red flags. I’d noticed that Owly is missing feathers along her neck, and I was mildly concerned about Beatrix, who seemed to be occasionally fluffed up in an unhappy stance. I decided to spend some time watching the Ladies. The key to taking good care of your animals is to spend quiet time observing them. This often doesn’t happen in winter when the temps are well below freezing. Within a half-hour of watching, I discovered a serious problem.

Misty is a feather picker. I saw her walk up to Owly, who stood there placidly, while she pulled feathers out of her neck. Misty did the same to Beatrix and even to the higher status Nancy Drew. Bad behavior is not always accompanied by commotion, so this had been going on for awhile without me knowing it. Feather picking is very bad, and I’ll write about it in my next post.

Misty was brazen in her behavior, so I scooped her up and had her swap places with Beulah. Now Beulah could join the flock, while Misty paced inside of the hutch.

Beulah decided to leave the snow and go into the coop. There was a bit of consternation. She smartly got onto the roost. Twiggy and Beatrix moved in to get a closer look.

Beatrix, hoping to increase her status against this interloper, pecked at Beulah’s head. Beulah was taking it and I didn’t want to see blood, so I needed to stop this behavior. All I had to do was to put my hand between them. Beatrix tried four times, encountered my hand (I didn’t push her, I simply gently blocked her pecking), gave up, and went back to the floor of the coop.

Within minutes, I was quite pleased to see this body language. The flock was going about their busy day, ignoring the new hen. Beulah was comfortably on the roost, not being harrassed.

Then it got better. Twiggy and Veronica hopped onto the roost. They each selected a rung, and all three started preening. Birds only groom themselves when they feel safe and comfortable.

And then Veronica took a nap.

Success! Beulah got to stay with the Ladies. Misty spent the night in the hutch. More about that story tomorrow.

The nursing home hens have been doing their job. The memory loss residents watch what’s going on in the coop from their activity room windows. Other residents have to go outside to see the chickens, which isn’t a bad thing. I heard from a friend who’s mother is in rehab there after a broken hip. On Saturday the weather warmed to the 40s and she wheeled Marian outside to see the flock. If not for the animals, they would have stayed indoors. My friend looks forward to bringing the great-grandchildren for a visit.

The other thing that the hens have done is to uplift the days of the people who work at the nursing home. Lisa, originally skeptical of the project, now spends her lunchtime and breaks with her favorite hen, Clementine.

But, all was not well with the girls. I’d been called about some feather loss around the tails. I went to see what was going on. There was no blood-letting, but the plumage was certainly shortened and sparse. I watched the flock for twenty minutes. As I observed the dynamic amongst the four girls I didn’t see any obvious signs of aggression. They ate comfortably next to each other.

However, Clementine was clearly on the bottom of the pecking order and skittered away if the other hens even looked at her. She had the barest bottom, made worse by runny white diarrhea. It looks like vent gleet to me.

Today Lisa is going to give Clementine a warm soak in an epsom salt bath and treat with povidone. Hopefully, I’m right about the vent gleet and the treatment will clear up the mess. However, I could be wrong, and I’ll be checking back in with LIsa next week.

Feather picking is, I think, the number one concern for most backyard chicken keepers. Once this bad habit starts, it’s hard to break, especially if it spreads to more than one hen. What I observed at LIfe Care was that there was only one culprit.  Beulah, the Black Star, was the only hen with nary a feather out of place.

In a case like this, the easiest thing to do is to remove the aggressor. Four hens would be as good as five for entertaining the residents of the nursing home. I put Beulah in a crate and brought her back home.

Because Beulah was originally from the same batch of chicks as the Literary Ladies, and because she’s been in a “closed flock” (one not exposed to other poultry), and because I know that neither of the flocks has seen illness, I wasn’t worried about biosecurity and so didn’t have to quarantine her. I’m also not worried about Beulah returning to her feather-picking ways. Putting her in with a new flock deposes Beulah of her top-hen status. The bad habit should be broken. However, integrating one hen into an established group can be a challenge. There will be pecking. There will be consternation and upheaval.. In this case, though, 24 hours after bringing Beulah home, she has rejoined the flock that she knew as chicks with little drama. Does she still remember them? I have no way of knowing. But, I’ll tell you how I integrated this one chicken into the group in my next post. In the meanwhile, you might see a bit of chasing as the new pecking order settles down – don’t worry about it!

It’s not easy to tell the two Black Stars apart, so I’ve put a blue band on Beulah’s right leg. Also, her chest is a tad darker than Nancy Drew’s, the other Black Star in the flock.

The goats say to ignore the groundhog.

The goats haven’t begun to shed yet, which is a sure sign that despite today’s thaw, that there’s a lot more winter to come.

I’m a firm believer that having the right tools can transform a chore into an agreeable activity. This is true in my kitchen. I’m not one to use a lot of gadgets, but having well-made tools makes the process of cooking a pleasure. Put a sharp knife in my hand, and a seasoned wood cutting board under it, and I feel competent and happy. Hand me a dull knife and ask me to cut on one of those glass boards, and all I want is to get out of the kitchen.

The right tools can make or break your time in the chicken coop, too. Like in the kitchen, you don’t have to have a lot of tools, but they do have to be appropriate for the job and be in good shape. I learned this very early on. When I was sixteen, I spent 10 weeks at a riding school in England. There were three brooms for a dozen girls, and only one of the brooms had full, sturdy bristles. Woe to the girls who had to sweep with the worn out brooms! We’d hurry to the stable yard, hoping to be the first one there to grab the good broom. To this day, I get great satisfaction sweeping with a new broom.

Keeping the coop clean and dry is the first line of defense against disease and parasites. My routine is made easy with these tools:

(from left to right)

You can’t cleanup without the right-sized muck tub (big enough so that the pitchfork fits, but not so large that it’s too bulky or heavy to carry.)

The metal rake is for tidying up the outside pen. It helps to loosen the dirt and remove manure.

The broom is both for sweeping up the floor, and also for getting down cobwebs. Cobwebs are reservoirs of bacteria and viruses. Sweep them out!

A plastic barn shovel is lightweight and wide and the perfect size for innumerable tasks. Once you have one in your barn, you’ll never know how you functioned without it.

A kitty litter scoop is good for quick pickups, and I also use it to clean manure out of nesting boxes. Spend a little extra money on a metal one. The plastic scoops break when kept outdoors.

A scrub brush is necessary for keeping waterers clean.

A good pair of scissors for opening bags and cutting baling twine (and once in a rare while for cutting a sticky fly strip off of a hen’s back!)

The fine-tined plastic pitch fork sifts out manure and leaves clean shavings. This will be a money saver for you as you’ll throw out less bedding.

A dustbin and brush is handy for cleaning in corners and wiping off nesting boxes.

Finally, make sure that your tools have an organized storage place. Hang them up where they are easy to reach and yet out of the way (if you have goats, you know how important it is to have passages clear and tools stowed where the goats can’t reach them to “help.”)

Have I left out your favorite chicken coop tool?

In another post I’ll list the things needed to setup a coop, like waterers and grain bins.

* Please note that I have Amazon links to these tools so that you can get an idea of pricing. I have not necessarily purchased items through these online stores. However, if you do shop Amazon, please start by clicking through a link on my site. I’ll get a small commission from Amazon, which helps to support HenCam. Thanks!

A few years ago a marketing arm of an industrial egg producers group put out a press release stating “brown chickens lay brown eggs and white chickens lay white eggs.” This erroneous factoid got into such prestigious magazines as Gourmet. While it is certainly true on factory farms, where there are only white or brown hens, that produce only white or brown eggs, it is certainly not true anywhere else. Actually, there is no correlation between feather color and egg color. Although wouldn’t that be fun, if, for example, my black and white hen Veronica laid black and white eggs?

There is, however, some correlation between egg color and earlobe color. The rule of thumb is that a white-lobed hen lays white eggs, while red-lobed hen lays brown eggs. People love to hear this bit because it sounds so outlandish. No one even thinks about a hen’s ears! Unlike many animals, the chicken’s ears don’t stick out, and they are somewhat covered by swirls of small feathers. As the saying goes, out of sight, out of mind. Although the entrance to the ear is hidden, you can often see the earlobe, which is a patch of soft skin. In some hens it’s obvious, and in some it’s not.

Twiggy’s white lobe is that blob to the lower left of her eye. Note that it is white and she does indeed lay white eggs.

Like Twiggy, Opal has white feathers, but her earlobe is red, and she lays brown eggs.

If the white ear/white egg correlation held true, then Misty would produce white eggs. She is a Blue Andalusian, which the books say have white earlobes, thus the “rule” says that she will lay white eggs. There are her earlobes. White.

Oh, wait. On a closer look, Misty’s earlobes are tinged with blue. This does not mean that she lays a blue egg. The egg that she does lay has a faint beige tint to it. Here it is on the top front row on the left. Twiggy’s pure white egg is next to it.

And what of the eggs that are neither white nor brown? What of blue, olive, green and chocolate? What of eggs with speckles? A fairly accurate rule is that hens with white lobes are limited to laying white eggs, but hens with reddish lobes can lay brown eggs, or eggs of other colors. (Yes, I am aware of hens with black lobes, and rare white-lobed hens that lay brown eggs, but I am trying for a sensible clarification here!)

The best known of the colorful egg laying breeds are the Araucanas and Americaunas. These chickens have reddish lobes – not that you can easily see them under their muffs and tufts! This is Beatrix. She lays dusky blue eggs. (The blue eggs in the above photo were laid by Owly.)

In true, there is a far wider variation in feather color, egg color, and earlobe color than any “rules of thumb” or marketing board press releases would have you think. I say, embrace that diversity. It makes the chicken yard, and the world, a much more interesting place.