How to introduce new chickens?

Mum said:

I have my resident flock and I have a recently acquired mini flock (which held 4, 1 died, leaves 3).

Last weekend, I was given two more hens (who had been vaccinated). My logic was, the 3 from the mini flock had been with me one month (quarantine time!). The 2 new one's were vaccinated (not sure the 3 mini flock had been) and I took the risk of integrating the 2 new, with the 3 mini's. I would NOT have done this with my resident flock - I chose them specifically; these last additions were given as part of a package for the housing the seller was selling.

Intro's on the first day were, as expected, very henny! The pecking order was on full throttle, to say the least! Today? The odd nip but nothing worthy of note. So, within 3 days, all is settling down nicely.

Now, come the warmer weather, I will need to amalgamate my resident flock with the mini-flock. This will be done via free-ranging expeditions and familiarisation. It could take weeks, may even take a couple of months - I'm ok with that because I will have more time then than I have now.


Both approaches do work; but the safest approach is the gradual approach as opposed to the bung-em-in-at-the-deep-end one.

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baileybrood said:

I'm trying the playpen method with the 2 new chickens I got today. They will be joining a flock of 3. My only problem is...... The playpen will not fit in my coop at night. The coop and playpen are in a totally enclosed 12 x 12 fortress . I have placed the playpen under the lean to of the coop to provide them with cover in case of bad weather.
My question is....can I leave them in their playpen in the run all night? I have placed chicken wire over the playpen so they can't get out and like I said, it is in a totally enclosed run. I just hate to leave them outside all night but not sure what else I can do. They are 8 and 9 weeks old so they're pretty big.
Will this be okay tonight??

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baileybrood said:

I opted for bringing them in the house. I just set up our dog crate again Figured, better safe than sorry! They did really well for the few days of visiting through the fence. I put them in the coop last night and all went well. Everyone is getting along very well!

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