For those of you on the “Storm Watch” – Storm continues to get stronger every day. Her butt is scabbed over and while there is still a lot of skin exposed, it’s on its way to healing.
She is also getting stronger and stronger, in fact on Friday she literally decided to test her wings and, as Bantams are prone to do, flew across the room attracted to a mirror that was on the other side.
No, Storm, you need to stay put.
I placed her back on her blanket, twig perch and when she then flew over and landed on the top of my head, I decided that perhaps she was strong enough to begin spending time outdoors.
During the day, she now joins the 2 other “littles” in a secure “playpen” and then at night, those 2 littles go back into the henhouse and Storm comes into the house to roost and have a little quiet time.
I’m reluctant to put her in the coop until she is fully healed and even when I do, I’m going to try and figure out some method to let the littles have some peace in isolation.
A reader wrote to me about this very topic. How do you integrate bantams with standards, especially when there is a problem? I remember one chicken owner who told me to never mix quails with chickens in the same flock – it’s a size thing, he told me.
We already have a tan bantam and a black frizzle in the flock which is why I think the other two have been spared but this little gray one? She sticks out like a sore thumb and the flock is literally out for blood with her.
But there’s no rush to put her back because Storm’s skin has to be completely healed (and I’d like to see at least the start of feathers before she goes back out to our now-freezing NH nights), but when it’s time, I think that I’ll build some sort of Bantam-only escape area so that everyone can go to separate corners when those inevitable disagreements within the flock arise.
Would love to hear stories of how you coped with mixing bantams with standards (or how you handled a mean bully) in your flocks.
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Wendy Thomas writes about the lessons learned while raising children and chickens in New Hampshire. Contact her at [email protected]
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