For anyone following the baby chicken integration into a flock (I know... you have to be a hard core backyard chicken person to actually care........) The latest update: # (hashtag) has been sleeping in the coop for three nights now. Its worse than trying to get a human 2 year to go to bed. By the time it gets dark she is tired, stressed out and manic..... but refuses to go to bed. I told you about night one, waiting with her by the fire until the big girls were good and sleepy. That night she was so tired she was asleep in seconds. Night 2, we gave the big girls a 10 minute head start and then put her in. It was twilight ; I tried to get her to go through the coop door and she kept running back out again. I put her in through the egg door and she began squealing. Elphie made "shut up!" clucking noises and she quieted down immediately. Last night was just funny. The other girls had gone to bed and she was running around stressed and squealing. And then the big surprise..... Elphie came back out to get her. She is still scared of the other birds so of course she ran. Elphie did her chicken version of a shrug and went back to bed. As soon as Elphie went in I put her in too. First through the regular door (she kept running back out and crawling up my leg.) Then I put her in through the egg door and I thought we were done. I waited quietly for a couple of minutes and then went back in the house. I opened the window so I could listen for trouble and she must have heard it because she went running back out again, jumped up on the potato box and tried to fly through the window. I put her back in and this time Elphie yelled at her and she stayed put. The coop seems to be the safe zone. Nobody fights or picks on anyone else in there. So, waking up and going to bed everybody gets along. The pen is a different story. I'm just wondering how long I'm going to have to keep stuffing her into bed before she goes on her own.
