Yeah, it never gets easier.

For me the hardest moment is when they get really sick and I have to weight their odds of survival against their present pain.

I’ve never had chickens that couldn’t be reintroduced together yet. I know it happens though.

My trick is to put a fence in their enclosure so they can’t actively try to kill the wounded one but still interact. Because if you keep them apart for too long they might end up deciding that they don’t know each other anymore and not accept the hen back. Plus if the separated one feels too lonely it might end up refusing to eat and letting itself die on the spot.

As a fun side fact, we always picture a coop as a rooster managing his hens but it’s not really the case. While the rooster has some power in the group, it is usually shared with the oldest/biggest hen.

I do my best and constantly learn new stuff about them.

We hatched some chicks recently and they’re so cuddly. They’re still scaredy prey birds but they’re way more trusting than their parents. We can easily pick them up and check them around and they won’t bat an eye.

The ones we got as young adults will climb on our knees if they want and will accept being petted on occasion (especially under and around the beak). But they’ll still recoil a bit when we reach for them. They quickly relax once you hold them.

They’re also way smarter than we usually give them credit for. They’re not parrot smart but they’re still birds. They recognize their own reflection, have complex social dynamics, roughly understand some vocal cues, and will solve some simple problems if there’s some kind of incentive. We haven’t even trained them at doing anything, they learn by themselves quite quickly.

For example, we had locked a sick hen in a coop with some towels and a bit of heating. They must’ve fumbled with the latch until they managed to open it because we found them all cozied up in the now open coop. It even happened twice until we added a spring to the latch so thy physically couldn’t open it.