[bastonjock]

Plan A was to wait another two weeks and pick up 6 8 week old chickens from a guy in the village,anyhow i was persuded by my wife and daughters to go and look at some chickens,anyhow i showed all of the breaking strain of a kit kat and succombed to "daddy i want that one"

so we got a blue silkie,red silkie,speckled suffolk,barndelver and a rhode island red.Their ages are around 14 weeks with exception of the barndelver which is POL,so they are all being fed on layers mash and seem to have setteld in.

Im now going to have to fit out the rear of my hay barn for the other 6

[bantam novice]

good luck with your flock.  At least they will all be starting together.  They will need to establish pecking order which may look gruesome but give it a few days and they should settle.  Keep  the purple spray on hand!  please post some pics if you can

[bastonjock]

it looks like 4 of them have settled in,the smallest one is a blue silkie and she is looking a bit quiet,its all early days,they have only been in their new home for 6 hours.
ive decided to keep them in their run and not to let them go free range untill they are fully grown,so far ive had two cats patrolling.The other scare that i got was when one of my dogs tried to bite one,ive never seen the dog bite at anything before,my wife was holding the dog and i had the RR in my hands and the dog tried to bite it.

I am feeding them on layers mash,is that okay or is there something better for 14 week old chicks? the guy i bought them from said he had them on "rearers" ??

[rachelr]

I have had my girls for about two months and they free range no worries with my three dogs.

However I did spend the first week in the garden with them and telling them to leave.

I got some ex batterys a week ago and I am having to start again as they quite fancy the taste of these ones.

I will always be wary of my spaniel and will keep an eye on him when he is in the garden.

[bastonjock]

I let my chicks out for a few hours today,they had the paddocks all to themselves.I took some advice and got a chair so that i could watch them,what a show they found the muck heap and had a rummage around then went off down the horse walk,one found a windfall plum and then it was mayhem as they all went for the plum untill one or two noticed that the ground was covered in plums,my labrador and my eldest snauzer just stood and looked had a couple of sniffs but no problems,the youngest dog was not allowed close.

Then when i got them back into their run/coup i chucked in a couple of brown bread crusts and they loved it.

The little blue silkie is no longer looking lost.