Can you Mix Broilers with Regular Chickens?

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babalubird

babalubird

Songster
11 Years
Jul 21, 2008
410
5
129
Sorry, so many questions today...

In my July 7 order of 71 chicks and 12 ducks, I also ordered 8 broilers. I did have all the new chicks in one cage and the broilers seemed to be getting singled out and brutalized by the smaller chicks. One injured badly enough it died. I had planned to house them all together in the big chicken tractor as we gave the broilers a test run to see if we could learn to raise, butcher and market them before investing in separate housing.

Do any of you successfully keep the two together or is there just something about these big dumb lugs that always make them targets of the other chickens? Or is it just impossible to keep them together? Suggestions appreciated.

Thanks.

Connie
 
It is not a good idea to keep them together because of food issues. Your broilers are programmed to eat constantly and you may have to ration feed to keep their legs and heart from giving out on them. (This could have happened to the one you lost.)

Your regular chicks can and should be fed freely.
 
Ours are together. Now I am a newbie too but we had 5 broilers, 5 roasters (all from 4H) and 9 hens and a roo. We butchered the batch we got in May and the June ones will be butchered in a few weeks. Our pullets have just started laying (one or two eggs a day) so we have everyone on grower/finisher mix (with oyster shell available) We have not been adding feed at night --the girls are roosting anyway. Our meaties rarely leave the coop--though are welcome to. So far it seems to be working. Now if we end up doing a bunch next year (or more later this year) we will have a separate coop for the meaties since they are so smelly. We just butchered our roo today since we live one block outside city limits and legally can have roosters (as long as noone complains) we weren't taking any chances. I love the pullets so don't really want to bring too much attention to our backyard. Our roo was great until he's started crowing constantly at 5:30 am and throughout the day!
 
I raise broilers and egg layers together all the time. I cannot order 25 meat birds because we don't need that many so I usually order 10-15 broilers and make the rest of the order up with egg layers. They are kept together in the same pen from the moment that they get home until the time I butcher them. I have raised them like this several times and have never had a problem with it, and I do leave feed and water out all the time free choice.
 
Thank you all for your answers. You've given me hope.
smile.png
Connie
 

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