Well, I haven't posted in a long while, maybe the blogger life isn't for me.
The chickens are doing very well, tragically Buffy died of the heat during the summer, and we bought two new chickens, Pearl, a Black Australorpe, and Beatrice, a Speckled Sussex. Pearl quickly replaced Betty as leader of the flock and Betty became bitter for this and beat on Beatrice constantly. But after awhile Pearl, too, died but of Fatty Liver Syndrome this time. It is common in pet chickens when they get too many treats and their liver breaks. There was nothing we could have done. So we got a Cream Legbar, Millicent and Marigold, a Swedish Flower hen. They became very much bullied by Beatrice because she had no guardian when she lost Pearl and thus became bottom chicken. We had to break up many beatings because Marigold would squat for her like she would for a rooster to show submission, but she'd sit on them, pecking them on the head. Millie was fast and able to escape.
Beatrice wouldn't stop so we split them up into a second run bought from Costco. That went well, they weren't trapped with bullies during work and school days. Later, though, we got ANOTHER chicken from a feed store, it just had a very sad look in it's eyes and we had to get it. It was a Black Australorpe, called Opal. She gets bullied by Marigold and Millie most even when she is bigger than Millie. She has adapted well, though, because she was used to flock life where she came from unlike Millie and Marigold. It is a very nice flock now, although bullying isn't uncommon still.
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