Velvet, the cabinet was part of a double blessing. We have a small hobby farm and I swear I try to have one of every living creature on it, lol. For ages, I had wanted an emu and a friend called and said , contact this lady , you will get your emu.... so I did and what I got was the sweetest lady who was trying to home her late father's emus and wanted only a few dollars for the pair in order to compensate the neighbor who would have to give his time to assist us in catching and trailering them..... as we talked , I told her about all my chickens etc and she said, when you go to the barn there at dad's , look inside , there is one of those incubators and I do not know if it still works but you can have it' I know dad used it up until a couple years ago.....so I did ....got it home, kicked off some dust and she fired right up, works like a charm.....believe me, otherwise , I would still be using them good ole styrofoam baters, lol...... I count that day as one of my most blessed...... got my babies who I adore and a great bater to boot....

I wouldn't worry about the integrating right now. Just get her over the feather pecking. You can work on the integrating later. I had a chicken that I had to separate from the flock last fall. She was quite a bit younger than the rest of the "ready-to-lay" hens I bought. I assumed this, anyway, because her comb and wattles were not developed yet and she wasn't laying with the rest of them. They all picked on her, as did the rooster, and chased her away from the food, water, perch and outside door. She hid in a nesting box all the time. I took her out of the chicken house but let her free range around their pen all day every day and just shut her up separately at night. They other chickens were with her all day but separated by the pen fence. I did worry about her freeranging by herself but she didn't go far from the other chickens. They love to get out of the fence and eat the fresh grass and such. They watched her a lot and I think were jealous that she was out there and they were not. I hoped it would give them the idea that she was my special chicken. After a few weeks, when she had started laying little eggs outside, I started taking her into the chicken house at night and setting her up on a perch with the other chickens. She didn't know she could get down by herself yet so stayed there and didn't hide in a nesting box. I stood with her and protected her from the other chickens and gave them a push or a flick if they came near to her. I put her at the feeder and waterer and protected her while she ate and drank. I let them know in no uncertain terms that it is NOT FUN to pick on this chicken and that she is mine. (Thank you Velvet Sparrow for that training info). I turned the light off when I left so that they were left in total darkness and went to sleep. So she was with them at night and when they woke up in the morning. She soon learned that she could walk to the end of the perch, against the wall, and turn away from them and they couldn't peck her. They always tried for her head. One cold night I took her in and she immediately moved over and pushed her way into the settling group of hens and hunkered down and hid her head so no one could peck her. She did that like she was familiar with this move, so I assumed she had been doing that at night and was ok with it. I never did see any blood or missing feathers from serious pecking injuries as she was good at getting away and hiding her head. I left her in there longer and longer in the mornings and she was laying her eggs in the nesting boxes. I know this because of the number of eggs. Its hard for me to tell her from the other chickens now, she's just one of the group and they all get along pretty well, most of the time anyway.

You know, it was not expensive in money OR time to do this, it was pretty darned simple. :) DH got a PS EyeToy color camera for $5.00 at Gamestop, and YahooLive is the host for the cam, sound and chat, at no cost to us. My husband had the know-how to get things going, but you can find out online and it isn't difficult or complicated. The number of people viewing the cam and talking in chat crashes my husband's computer sometimes, but we just restart things and everything's fine. We wanted to hatch chicks anyway, so thought we'd share the experience. The cam just pointed through the viewing panes in the lid of the incubator, now we set it inside the brooder box. Baby chicks DO have a wonderful effect on all who gaze upon them, it's like Valium for your eyes. *L* And yeah, it is VERY remarkable that Chicken Sister has babies this late in life--but then, both of the boys LOVE her to distraction, you should have seen them run over and burble over her when we brought her back from the vet after her egg-binding adventure. What a couple of love-struck chuckleheads. :) It was very sweet, they missed her so! We'll be hatching again the weekend of June 21st, and will resume chickam then, if anyone wants to watch. We will have our incubators issues solved before we start more eggs. Velvet ~:>

I have two bluebirds in my backyard. They are feeding the little one in the birdhouse. They have been here for two week. One of them has just begun tapping on my doors and windows. Then flying to the birdbath, then flying to the feeder and back and forth. The birdbath was empty and so was the feeder. Now both are full and he is still tapping on my windows. He comes to a window, then to the birdhouse, and back and forth. Is he trying to communicate something? Also, last summer, there was a bird that tapped on my front door in the night, I could see him through the partial glass. He would not see his reflection at night. What could be the reason for that behavior? Barby