How/when to integrate mother and chicks to the rest of the flock?

[Summer98]

I'm needing to do the same thing. I have a free range hen that hatched out chicks (we have no idea where) and I will need to integrate her and her chicks back into her original flock. So you think 5 weeks is safe? I have them in a kennel for now so my cats don't eat them.

 

[Ridgerunner]

I think now is as safe as it will get. Broody hens have been hatching and raising chicks with the flock for thousands of years. You are dealing with living animals so bad things can happen whether you integrate them now or later. Living animals don’t come with guaranties.

If you integrate now Mama will take care of integration. If you wait until she weans them the chicks will be on their own. The chicks will still have to take care of the pecking order problems, but they’ll handle that by just staying away from the adults most of the time. That’s assuming they have enough room to work with. If you have them shoehorned into a tiny space then they will probably have problems however you try it.

It sounds like you have a fair amount of space so I think now is the time to put the hen and chicks with the flock.

 

[Summer98]

I'd like to, but everyone is free range and I can't let the chicks range yet or my cats will eat them. But I can't close the door to the coop and not let the adults move in and out. The kennel is so large it won't fit in the coop.

 

[Ridgerunner]

I didn’t realize your concern was cats. You are asking an impossible question to answer. It depends on the individual cat. I’ve never had a problem with a cat bothering a chick with a broody hen but other people have. There is just no hard and fast answer to that.