Our birds are split into two separate flocks who spend the day together.
The white meat birds who also live with the pet Orpingtons, and our older egg flock.
Tonight is the first night that they will all sleep together.
It only took an hour of trying to entice the meat birds into the big coop with the egg flock, before I gave up and carried them to bed one by one, jostling for space on their behalf on the perches.
I don't pick them up to carry them around on a daily basis but tonight really highlighted the weight difference between meat and egg birds. The Orpingtons are a month younger than the meat birds give or take but weight wise there is probably a kilo and half if not more between them.
The perch peck-a-thon is over (I hope) and, fingers crossed, not too many bloody combs and wattles in the morning.
