
Maybe it was pineapples for you. Or candy. Or mob hits. Or Words with Friends. Don’t pretend you know not of what I speak!
I thought I escaped my farming addiction. After all, it’s been at least 2 years since that fateful Saturday afternoon when I deleted the whole game in disgust at my time consuming imaginary farming empire. Turns out, I’ve only graduated to real farming. Okay, maybe not REAL farming, but the keeping of 14 chickens in a farm like environment. Now... I am addicted to poultry and coops.

So, I got them a bigger coop. It was shiny and red. My chickens were happy. I called them my Scoobies.
But then, I was left with an empty little coop! What a waste! And in all seriousness, I had a bad hen:rooster ratio. 2 Roosters + 5 Hens = not enough feathers on the hens. So I got 3 more hens. But it turns out the 3 hens were actually 1 hen and 2 roosters, so I actually doubled my little rooster problem. Details. Sigh.
Lo and behold, the new 3 got along well in their little coop, and my 7 Scoobies were perfectly content ignoring them. They all free ranged in their separate tribes, and there was peace over the land.

To recap, 6 chickens in big coop, 4 chickens in little coop. Happy free ranging by all, sometimes even integrated tribes.
Then came November, and the cold. My "little coop roosters" were clearly eyeing the bigger (& warmer) coop. This might have been Angel's attempt at revenge. Following zero consultation with me, the little coop birds staged a very well executed coop d'état (sic), which is a sudden deposition of a ruling rooster by a small group of the existing farm establishment to depose the extant government and replace it with another body, civil or military. A coop d'état is considered successful when the usurpers establish their dominance in the new coop. Unfortunately, for Dru the Roo, the November push was a success.

Some might have suggested it was time for some chicken and dumplings, but Dru the Roo was particularly fluffy, so I provided him some extra chicken scratch and a few conjugal visits with his favorite hen and hoped things would calm down later.
The peace did not return to the land...

So, I went back to Westphalia Trading Co., which is having a Christmas sale, and picked up a second big shiny red coop.
I also located 4 new banty hens for my fluffy rooster, which ... Sigh... brought with them disease and plague to the land. Ok, they were sneezing. Thankfully, this was cured with 14-days of Duramycin-10.
After cure and quarantine, I dubbed the old big coop “Barn O’ Bantys” and placed the 4 new hens and the formerly lonely Dru the Roo there for safe keeping. They are quite happy now, and accept visitation from Cordie the Silkie banty hen whenever she pleases. Angel the Roo, who is also a banty, is not allowed in the “Barn O’ Bantys” on penalty of death.

Again, without the benefit of my consultation, these chickens proclaimed that Angel the Roo is also not allowed in the new coop, on penalty of death. Sigh. They have since agreed to amend their Constitution. They allow Angel in the coop after dark, if he stays on the high roost that they cannot reach.
OMG chickens - can you not work with me here!? Coops do NOT grow on trees!
To recap - 7 chickens in a big coop, 6 chickens in a big coop, 1 chicken that is excommunicated except at night, as long as he stays on his roost, but nonetheless will not deign to enter the lonely little coop.