Today the babies moved in with the old girls, and it was an exciting day, indeed!
I haven't updated about them in a long time so here's a quick catch-up:
Remember these little cuties
and their two-level chick-o-miniums?
and their two-level chick-o-miniums?
Well, they quickly outgrew their brooder bins and
we put the Aracaunas in a cardboard box home
(Turner found this FASCINATING).
Then they outgrew that and we put them in a chicken wire circle in the barn.
When they started having nightly (and then daily) jailbreaks,
we decided that it was time to move in with the big girls.
Today, we created an open chicken wire playground beyond the chicken run so that they could all meet on turf that was no one's territory. Then we allowed the babies access to the door of the chicken coop. You can see how that went!
Belle was very interested in them, but they were afraid to leave familiar territory. 
Finally Jim got into the circle and chased them all into the chicken coop. When they finally went outside, I'd expected the big girls (especially LaVerne, the Black Australorp) to pick on them, but there was no bloodshed or fighting (at least not yet -- they haven't all had to find perch space yet!
As you can see below, they keep themselves in 3 flocks!
The big girls are in the foreground,
the Araucanas are in the middle
and the Red Stars (and PeeWee) stayed in the run.
They've stayed almost exclusively in their flocks all day.
In the end,
after an afternoon of sweeping and scraping chicken poo off of lots of surfaces,
we got our barn back!
Now the next step is to find a home for the 2 Aracauna roosters
*****
Anybody interested?
