Last Night Was Not Fun

The chicks are now 2 weeks and 4 days old. They have doubled in size and space is getting a little cramped for them. Can you guess what that means? Pecking. The smallest chick is getting picked on. Mainly just in the tail feather area. Noticed it a couple of days ago - hence why they all got a field trip outside for a couple of hours when the weather was in the 80s. They loved it and it definetly gave them time to forget about the little red feathered tail they all wanted to peck out. After the field trip the chicks were contented until the middle of last night. About 1:30 in the morning I woke up to alot of commotion and of course the dumb birds started it again. Had to find something (laundry basket) to separate her in and put her in my bathroom with the door shut so the cats couldn't get to her. I think she stayed in the same spot all night and of course it took me a couple of hours to really get back to sleep. Hubby got up and made a new smaller storage container like the bigger one and we placed it beside the other birds so she could at least hear them. She is still not very happy. I think later in the day I will take one other chicken and put with her and see if they can get along and keep switching out the other chickens to do this so they won't forget her and try to establish a pecking order. Hubby started on the new coop (which is much smaller than the first we built last summer for our first flock of birds) and should be finished with it today. We plan on moving the chicks out there with a light for heat so they have a little more room and hopefully won't continue the pecking and when the weather cooperates we can let them out in the run during the day. Boy, who knew raising baby chickens was so much work and worry.