My How They Grow

I am always amazed at how quickly chickens grow.  We added six chicks to the flock in May and they are already catching up to the four older chickens we already had.  The two with the combs (red part on their heads) are the two year olds and the six behind them are the babies. 

This, of course, is bad news for the older chickens because they have been relentlessly esablishing a pecking order and picking on the younger six.  Often you will find the older chickens in the ideal spots in the coop and outside, while the younger ones are huddled in a corner someplace else.  As the babies have been getting bigger, I have noticed that they are begining to get a bit bolder about where they are in location to the older hens.  Before, when I would bring out food scraps (they love cherries and beet greens) the babies would often not get any, now they are begining to work their way in for the good stuff.  It will be interesting to see how the next few weeks progress as they continue to grow and assert themselves a little more.  The older chickens may have wished they hadn't been so relentless in esablishing a new pecking order when we added the new six to the flock.