Please help, integration isn’t improving

[Stumpi123]

Hi, we’ve been trying to introduce 2 bantam hens to our existing flock of 3 full size hens for a week. They’re in a coop, in a 2.5m x 3m walk-in run, in a garden (can’t let them out all day due to broken fence)

Sleeping together well, but the 2 new hens won’t leave the coop without us interfering.

The original flock are still pecking the new girls a lot (no blood) with some screaming, and all they do is hide. When they’re in the garden, the bantams run away from the other hens.

When they’re out in the garden they don’t fight but they stay segregated as 2 & 3.

Do we just put food and water into the coop and let them stay in there? (We did this for 2 days already)

Do we force them to stay out?

How long should we keep trying the introduction?

It’s likely to be raining all week so they are unlikely to roam out into the garden. Happy to provide more info, trying to keep the initial post as short as possible.

 

[Rose the Legbar]

He you done the see but no touch method before letting the new ones interact with the adult birds?

 

[Stumpi123]

He you done the see but no touch method before letting the new ones interact with the adult birds?

We tried this but only for a couple days; is it worth going back to this method for a longer period?
Our issue is that we don’t have another hen house for them to sleep in, so we’d either need something small and temporary or keep them in with the main flock overnight.

 

[Shadrach]

Hi, we’ve been trying to introduce 2 bantam hens to our existing flock of 3 full size hens for a week. They’re in a coop, in a 2.5m x 3m walk-in run, in a garden (can’t let them out all day due to broken fence)

Sleeping together well, but the 2 new hens won’t leave the coop without us interfering.

The original flock are still pecking the new girls a lot (no blood) with some screaming, and all they do is hide. When they’re in the garden, the bantams run away from the other hens.

When they’re out in the garden they don’t fight but they stay segregated as 2 & 3.

Do we just put food and water into the coop and let them stay in there? (We did this for 2 days already)

Do we force them to stay out?

How long should we keep trying the introduction?

It’s likely to be raining all week so they are unlikely to roam out into the garden. Happy to provide more info, trying to keep the initial post as short as possible.

Essentially chickens are tribal creatures. This is more or less noticable depending on keeping circumstances. There are combinations that can work well and combinations not so much.
Mixing bantams and full sized chickens is one of the not so much combinations.
Apart from the size difference their behaviour is often different in subtle ways.

The tribal aspect means chickens have a tendancy to seperate by breed given the opportunity.
Another factor is seperation by looks; birds of a feather, while sounding trite is pretty accurate.
Another complication is birds that are already established are often reluctant to let new arrivals join the tribe. If one was introduce full sized birds that had similar looks to those one already has, better still the same breed, then integration often goes a lot more smoothly.
You may with perseverance get them all to tolerate each other but I doubt they will ever be what one would describe as an integrated group.

The easiest solution is to house them seperately. The two groups should manage to coexist when out and about, each group ignoring the other eventually provided they have enough space.

 

[Tonyroo]

Don't force small breeds with large breeds together, smaller ones always get injured and become traumatized.

If you want to keep your flock, you need to divide your coop by adding a partition or wall to keep them separated from each other.

 

[SLOChick]

I had a flock of 8, with 6 full-sized chickens and 2 bantams. They started out together all as chicks. As they got older and matured, the two bantams tended to stay with the largest chicken in the flock who was very tolerant of them. It may just depend on the personality of the chicken, but it sounds like you're trying to introduce bantams to an already established large chicken flock. I think that is going to be tough.

 

[RubelliteRose]

When we introduced new birds into our flock, we did look-no touch for several weeks - until the last of the older girls lost interest in the new ones. Once they were together, it still took months before everyone stopped hanging out in separate groups and be completely integrated.

 

[LuluSilver]

We tried this but only for a couple days; is it worth going back to this method for a longer period?
Our issue is that we don’t have another hen house for them to sleep in, so we’d either need something small and temporary or keep them in with the main flock overnight.

I don’t have another coop either, so what I’ve done is put a wire dog crate in the coop and my 7 week old chicks sleep in there at night until they can safely sleep out with the rest of the flock!