Real Life

Wouldn't it be nice if a post titled "Real Life" was... well... nice? Sorry, not this time. Being a new livestock owner, I would like to think that those of the same species can get along. Rabbits should be able to get-along with other rabbits and chickens should be civil with other chickens. Ha! Boy have I learned a lot here.

Rabbits tend to be territorial which is why each rabbit needs its' own cage. Easy. Chickens are "flock" animals which means they usually like to live with other chickens. However-- as I have learned the hard way-- chickens don't always accept other chickens. If they grow-up together there is usually no problem. Easy. If you introduce new chickens to an established flock, there is usually a problem. Hard.

I found myself at the hard part.

So this afternoon, Trevor and I added an extension to our existing chicken coop. Lucky for us we still had our original "chicken coop" that we converted from a wooden insulated dog house. 

We had already added a large nesting box, roost, and drawbridge door so all we really had to add was chickens. Rejected chickens. This tiny doghouse/coop is just the right size for two chickens. Just what we (and the beat up Turkens) needed! Next I will post what we did to keep the two groups separate without building another chicken run or using more space than the existing coop took up.

By the way, we decided to name the Turkens: "Scully" and "Molter". Our little joke for X-files fans the world over.