A very united flock

The flock is really united at the moment. I have touched on this subject before but when Peaches and Barley were part of the flock, there were two groups, the bigger girls and the little girls. Since they left the flock the dynamic has totally changed.

Emerald and Speckles seem to have assumed a parental role watching over the little ones. Speckles is definitely in the mother hen role. She sits surrounded by the little girls while Emerald sits a short distance from them or if they are on the ladder Emerald perches above them.

Emerald is the first to call the alarm if there is a cat in the garden and some mornings I hear her strange, cockerel like, call, first thing.

Speckles calls the little girls to the treats and holds back herself while they have them. After dinner we always go up to the chickens before settling to watch some evening television. We offer some dandelion leaves through the mesh and Emerald will lightly peck at the little girls to get out of her way but Speckles will call them and hang back herself. Sometimes she will take a leaf and drop it front of them.

Emerald never pecks at Speckles. They have a lovely friendship and I have never seen them peck each other even around treats. They always roost side by side and are often at the food dish together.

Our united flock

You can just see Emerald’s feet in the top right hand corner of the photo. She is perched above them on her favourite perch. She always settles there before bedtime.

Speckles is surrounded by the little girls

Emerald watches over them from above

This is so typical. Speckles is always in the middle and it seems that the little girls go along with her playing at mother hen and happily gather around her.

We have been wondering what would happen if we added more little girls. Would Speckles take them into the fold too or would they remain outside of this group. It would certainly rock this happy little group, of that, I have no doubt.

I imagine that our sweet little Apricot, who is the friendliest girl and firmly bottom girl, would turn into a nightmare like Rusty before her. I think it would be an easier integration though, with just two bigger girls. The new girls would probably only have to run from the three amigos.

I would like to add some more girls in the spring. The last time we visited Dave and took the three amigos he told us he was having a break from breeding. I said that I would like a black serama and he said that he only kept the light colours as they are more popular.

With this in mind I rang Dave recently and asked him if he would be breeding again. He said that he hadn’t done so this year and the girls he has at the moment are the same ones that we picked the three amigos from. This means they have the same mix of colours that are in our current flock.

I asked if he would be breeding again and he said that he is now ready to breed again next spring. I asked if he would save me a black one if he hatched one and another of any different colour and ring me to let me know. He agreed to do this and we swapped e-mail addresses too so that we can stay in contact.

I hope to have seramas for a long time so it would be lovely to have different colours in the flock. This means I need to be patient and wait until spring. I imagine my flock will be happy with that as integration always rocks the boat. For now we will be content with our happy flock.