RedwoodCoastChick
Free Ranging
Due to the spring "chick shortage" around here & elsewhere, I'm in an odd situation where I'm raising 4 chicks from our local farm store (a few days old when I got them) and have 5 "started pullets" of different breeds on order who will be shipped at 15 weeks old in mid-June. My home-chicks will be ~9/10 weeks at that time. (None were day-old when they arrived at the farm store, already had stubby wing feathers emerging with tail feathers starting 3 days later.)
Certainly not ideal, but I wasn't finding the breeds I wanted from hatcheries (sold out till fall or 2024, or required purchase of too many) and they weren't available at local stores (also stampedes of people buying up chicks fast, so hard to get my breeds). The 5 pullets have not been raised together, so not bonded as a flock, though they come from the same ranch [Heritage Pullets in Montana].
Now I'm trying to figure out how the heck to bring these girls together.
Figuring on quarantine since the pullets are from elsewhere, don't want one group possibly getting the other group sick; but also worried that during quarantine, the pullets will sort out a hierarchy among themselves and be settling into their own flock by the time they can meet my younger "home team". Would a look/can't touch separation between the groups be advisable after quarantine's over, or can they meet out in the open run (enclosed in hardware cloth sides/top/bottom) with lots of hiding places for anyone being bullied?
The home-chicks will be settled in the permanent coop & run ~4 weeks before, soon as our nights warm up enough for chicks. The pullets will be in temporary quarters away from them until quarantine's over. I'm retired, so here to watch them most of the time during the merger though not overnight
.
I've been reading through lots of the many flock management threads here but haven't seen a scenario quite like this; hoping some of you can help me with your much-deeper experience since I'm a newbie?
Many thanks in advance...
Certainly not ideal, but I wasn't finding the breeds I wanted from hatcheries (sold out till fall or 2024, or required purchase of too many) and they weren't available at local stores (also stampedes of people buying up chicks fast, so hard to get my breeds). The 5 pullets have not been raised together, so not bonded as a flock, though they come from the same ranch [Heritage Pullets in Montana].
Now I'm trying to figure out how the heck to bring these girls together.
Figuring on quarantine since the pullets are from elsewhere, don't want one group possibly getting the other group sick; but also worried that during quarantine, the pullets will sort out a hierarchy among themselves and be settling into their own flock by the time they can meet my younger "home team". Would a look/can't touch separation between the groups be advisable after quarantine's over, or can they meet out in the open run (enclosed in hardware cloth sides/top/bottom) with lots of hiding places for anyone being bullied?
The home-chicks will be settled in the permanent coop & run ~4 weeks before, soon as our nights warm up enough for chicks. The pullets will be in temporary quarters away from them until quarantine's over. I'm retired, so here to watch them most of the time during the merger though not overnight
.I've been reading through lots of the many flock management threads here but haven't seen a scenario quite like this; hoping some of you can help me with your much-deeper experience since I'm a newbie?
Many thanks in advance...
