Adding new chickens plus transporting them to our home

WellingtonCoop

Chirping
Jul 30, 2020
22
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Hello everyone! šŸ„
We currently have four sweet Bielefelder hens that weā€™ve raised since chicks. We have offered to adopt three Red Sex Link hens (these ones are Rhode Island Red / White Leghorn) from a friend who has too many eggs to manage. They are healthy, about 1.5 years old, which I know is essentially middle-age for Red Sex Link, and weā€™ve been told that they are a bit ā€œorneryā€ by the owner. We have a large coop with a run, and we let our girls forage in our backyard.

My questions - We need to transport the Red Sex Link hens in our pickup truck from about 2 hours away (highway drive). We thought of taking a very large dog cage, wrapping it with a blanket to muffle the noise - with room to breathe of course, and padding the bottom so they donā€™t slip around and die of fear in the bed of the truck lol. Any other suggestions for safe transport from A to B? We donā€™t want them to go into shock!

And since we know them to be a bit ornery in personality, any suggestions for helping them acclimate to our coop? Our girls are so sweet. We donā€™t want anyone getting hurt. We thought of segregating the run with chicken wire for an afternoon so they can hang out before being shuttered into the coop for the night.

I would love any suggestions for safe transport and re-homing of this breed. Thank you all so much!

EDIT: We will be doing a 1-2 week quarantine so that the ladies can get to know each other in side-by-side but separate runs, and separate sleeping accommodations at night. Someone also mentioned issues with the new hens carrying diseases which makes perfect sense! Can someone tell me what I should be looking for while our new birds are in quarantine to ensure that theyā€™re healthy enough to join our flock?
 
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Welcome to BYC. Transportation plans are fine, but understand that apparently healthy birds can be carriers of disease.
Thanks for your response! Disease carrying concerns would be an issue with any new chicken integration I would assume. Do you have any tips or suggestions? After reading these great responses, we will do the ā€œlook donā€™t touchā€ method for at least a week before allowing the new flock to mingle :)
 

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