It's time to move the chicks out with the five. Red and Peanut aren't ready, so they move up to the Loft. From what I've read, this upsets the whole balance of the flock - a new pecking order will be established, and it might be brutal.
But they have to move out sometime. I decide to divide the run in two, and put some wood in between the fencing for the day. That way they'll get the idea that there is something on the other side, and it will be a slow introduction.
But my plan fails when my husband and my daughter decide to do their own thing: throw the chicks in and let the chips fall where they may. Apparently, just because I told them the plan, that doesn't mean it registered. I'm not happy.
The introduction is chaos. There's lots of chasing and running. There's lot of flapping. There's lots of clucking - both the threatening kind and the surprise "What? You're picking on me?" kind of clucking. With a stick, I try to poke the more aggressive ones.
At the end of the day, it is the Sharks versus the Jets - with the five in one corner and the seven in the other. Tomorrow, I won't be surprised to see them in matching T-shirts and tennis shoes, breaking out in dance.
I read somewhere that if you put one in when they are sleeping then everyone wakes up and they don't know that the new chick wasn't there before/ the new chick doesn't remember that she wasn't always there.
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