Would day trips to the allotment for some of my chooks upset the pecking order?

When I was first getting my girls I thought it would be a great idea to take them down to the allotment for the day and have them help rotivate the new part of our plot. The breeder said this was not a good idea as it was likely to put them off laying. We're now coming to the end of September and my flock has now grown to 9 birds of which only the two hybrids have started laying so I'm wondering whether over the winter I can take maybe three non laying birds to the plot for the odd session if I can make a suitable day tractor for them.

I'm concerned though as to what this might do to the pecking order. The most dominant birds at the moment are the two laying hybrids who  hang out together. I then have a two legbars and a pekin that are mid placed and stay together, a cochin who is now the largest bird but fairly solitary and three pekins that are the most recent arrivals, one of which is definitely bottom bird but another who is quite uppity and upwardly mobile.

I thinking of taking the two legbars plus original pekin though I don't imagine she will be great at clearing the ground.

Do people have any helpful advice on this? Is it a bad idea to start with?

If I do go for it would I need to get the allotment cut first to a low level before introducing the chooks? It was in use last year but has had no one on it this year and is rather overgrown already.

Firstly be very very cautious about taking your birds down to your plot. For one thing do you know for certain that fellow allotment holders are not using insecticides or slug pellets that your girls could ingest? I know they woud be on your plot but these things have a way of getting all over the place in allotments! Fatal to chookies!
Secondly, as i know form experience (2 allotment plots myself) they are a haven for the damned wood pigeons  and all wild birds who naturally cary all sorts of nasties that could be passed on to your chooks.
I certainly would never personally take any of my birds anywhere near my allotment for sheer peace of mind!
Thirdly, chickens are creatures of habit, dispupt it and beware! All sorts of chaos could erupt! They like their territory and moving them back and forth could turn their ordered little world up sidedown! And as said in the previous post, generally chooks  don't travel well so any trips apart to the vet are best avoided. Less stress = happy girls! 

Oh that's a shame.  While reading Ben's question I had begun thinking about a little chicken caravan hooked up to my car to take the girls on holiday...  :happy:

The idea is good and it's a shame the practicalities of it get in the way.  I had the same thought but didn't do it as I didn't want to stress the birds. 

My friend keeps her birds on the plot most of the year but takes them home for the winter

Oh that's a shame.  While reading Ben's question I had begun thinking about a little chicken caravan hooked up to my car to take the girls on holiday...  :happy:

 

But seriously one of the biggest follies any animal keeper has to guard against is anthropomorphism.  In its widest usage this is the tendency to ascribe human form, feelings, motivation and behaviour to animals or inanimate (none human) things.  It’s not surprising it’s deeply imbedded in the human psyche.  From an early age religious belief is ingrained in a whole system of symbolic anthropomorphic form.  God is seen as a human figure with super-human virtuous motivations.  If a disastrous happenstance occurs it is seen as the wrath of god and due to some evil we have committed or if good fortune “smiles” we think it is because we are being rewarded for being ‘good’, heaven is seen as an elysian paradise and hell a burning inferno and so on.  There are everyday examples of it all around us.  They do indeed "call the wind Mariah" and the sun really does have his "hat on" today

Pet keeping is unfortunately riddled with it and is promoted by marketing to spawn a hugely lucrative industry.  On this site you hardly have to look at more than a couple of posts to find examples of people referring to themselves as chicken mothers or their birds as girls or some such.  I even find myself doing it, in a recent post I described a bantam as “our little princess”.  All harmless innocent stuff you may think however it does have its dangers when we start to anthropomorphise animal behaviour we can actually be doing considerable harm.  Take the above as a “humorous” example but there are plenty of serious ones which are not so benign.  We live in houses with windows, comfortable furnishings and spacious rooms equipped for specific purposes like dining rooms kitchens, bathrooms and bedrooms.  These are what we think are the most commodious to our needs.  We should resist the temptation when designing or choosing chicken coops to favour ones build to suit our particular prejudices.  Unfortunately marketers know that we buy the things for our pets not our animals so they promote coops with lots of floor space for lounging about on, windows so our chickens can enjoy the view from their des res’ and so on.  These aren’t driven by our chickens needs they are intended to play on our anthropomorphic prejudices.

Animal behaviour is not generally prompted by deep inner feelings or significant cognitive processes but by millenniums of evolution and the natural selection of the most successful adaptive behaviour.  When chicken rush out to greet us we may be gratified that they are showing us the deep affection they have for us but in reality it’s because we return their show of apparent affection with a handful or two of treats.  A form of conditioned response on both sides.

Learn to understand our animals and their behaviour for what they are and what it is and we will get even greater pleasure from that understanding and knowing that we are actually helping them to lead a healthy, stress free natural life too.

Just off to feed my ladies with their elevenses corn now!
HF

well I shall take some of mine down to my allotment (still waiting to sign for it) if only to help me with the digging and to get them to eat the slugs and other creepy crawlies