It is now five weeks since we got the new girls and I should probably stop calling them the new girls.
I have decided to leave them mixed all the time now and just wait for them to get brave enough to spend time away from the top of the ladders.
Yesterday afternoon I spent time with them with the hatch and temporary gate closed once more and while confined to this end of the run they scratch and dig and eat some mash from the patio and mix with the rest of the flock without much hassle. As soon as I open up the run they go back to the ladder.
I am going to leave them together but continue to confine them to the patio part of the run if I think they need respite from the ladder. I am hoping that over time they will start to spend more time away from the ladders.
I took the chance to get some close up shots of them.
I use the temporary gate to keep them from the ladder
Cinnamon close up
Dandelion close up
Apricot close up
These two are a tight pair of girls
They stick together at all times. Dandelion’s head feathers have taken forever to open but are finally nearly there. You can see from this photo how tiny Cinnamon is but despite this she is the best digger of the three. She loves to dig and digs the deepest holes of all.
I felt confident enough once more to leave the girls in this part of the run for a while. I pottered in the garden near by.
Clematis
This is the clematis on the fence which we look out of the kitchen window on to. It is better this year than it has ever been.
The blossom on this shrub is lovely at the moment
We put this in for some height but I can’t now remember what it is.
A little later I opened up the run again and inevitably the three girls went back to the ladder. I just don’t get this obsession with the ladders. I knew they would be back down for the bedtime corn though so I decided that it was time to leave them to it.
When I went out to give them the bedtime corn they weren’t on the ladder but were sat together on the log with the rest of the flock around them. This is progress. I really think we are finally about there with this.
After dinner we checked on the girls and once again Apricot had gone in and found her perch. She is such a clever girl.
Apricot puts herself to bed on her perch
Dandelion was by the pop hole and Cinnamon was by the closed little coop next boxes. I retreated to see if they could work it out for themselves.
I went back at quarter to eight and there were no girls outside. I looked in the shed and was amazed to find that they had put themselves on the perches. We had put another perch in a few days ago, above the first one, because we know that once the girls get confidant with perching they prefer to go a bit higher.
Cinnamon was perched next to Apricot
And Dandelion was on the higher perch
What clever girls! I am so thrilled. This was easier than Freckles and Rusty at bedtime. I am so proud of them and I think I can safely say, that whatever else needs improvement, we have cracked bedtime. Well done little girls!
Click here to see the history of my flock.
Hooray!! Well done. It’s interesting isn’t it that even though you know it’ll work out in the end it’s a struggle to believe it.
You are so right. I have done this so many times and it has always worked out in the end and yet I found myself thinking that it wasn’t going to work this time.
My longest integration was six weeks and the shortest was one week with lots in between. This was five weeks and I had to keep telling myself not to despair before the six week period was up. This was the hardest one for such a long time but I guess it will always work out in the end.
Well done, you have worked so hard with them, You have some great photos today.
The blossom and clematis also are lovely.
I am feeling much happier with it all now. This was a difficult one but it’s getting better every day. The signs of spring in the garden are so lovely at the moment that I felt the need to include a bit of that too.