My neighbour is giving us her chickens

Hello all! I already have many pets, three fancy rats, a cat, a dog and two fish. The amount of animals in the house completely floors the amount of humans, and that's how I like it. My neighbour has twice before asked me to take care of her four hens while she was away, and I was really happy to. As well as getting to feed her overly friendly cats, I learned how to befriend her chickens and was allowed to use the eggs I found. A couple of days ago she approached my mum and asked her if she would like the hens, because she's not home enough to care for them. I asked my dad and he said he has no opinion, so we decided to get them.

I don't know how old they are, but they're all pretty much fully grown and regularly lay (the first time I took care of them I saw four eggs every afternoon). I believe my neighbour previously had three hens and a rooster, before realising the rooster was a rooster, and gave him away to avoid fertilised eggs. Because of this, the newest hen that came in after that seems a little reclusive and doesn't seem to trust me as much as the other hens, but she's adorable and I'm very open to letting her get comfortable. My neighbour's coop will be given to us I think, and all we have to really pay her for is the new bedding and food she bought. I've been doing my research all morning on how smart they are, whether they respond to names and how to train them, and I think we're going to actually bring them one garden over to ours next weekend. We're renaming all of them except for the newest one, because her name is really fitting. I'm wondering if they'll ever respond to the new names, or if they're too old to learn new tricks. We'll find out how old they are eventually, but I'm wondering if there's anything else I could be missing? I know there's a good chance my cat won't bother them because he's grumpy and lazy (I love him though), and my neighbour's two cats have all the energy in the world but the two groups don't bother each other. It's only my cat and her cats that bother each other, but that's besides the point.

Any advice I could know about them would be super helpful!

submitted by /u/justtxm
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from Pets https://www.reddit.com/r/Pets/comments/d9xql8/my_neighbour_is_giving_us_her_chickens/