Topic of the Week - Integrating Chicks into an Adult Flock

[Melissa Sakata]

Thanks - I was so hoping the young ones were a lot younger.

Good luck with the next groups integration.

Are you having integration troubles as well?

 

[sunflour]

Are you having integration troubles as well?

Not at the present, but following discussion in hopes of learning tips for next year

 

[Melissa Sakata]

My top hen has finally allowed (to an extent), the 3 black Orps into the flock. They are all roughly the same age about 20-24 weeks old. None of them laying yet. They are allowed to free range for 3 hours in the backyard when I get home from work

I have 2 14 week old Ameraucanas that are in their own chunnel during the day that the older flock is able to see. When I free range the older flock, the top hen acts as if she wants to pounce on and hurt the younger ones. Am I going to have problems with this hen when and if I introduce new birds to the flock? It took her a month to be civil with the 3 Orps and I did take your advice and set up an additional feeding and water station. This helped somewhat, unless she was in a bullying kind of mood.

I know the Ameraucanas are too young to integrate, but is there anything I can do to have a smoother transition with these 2 when the time comes?

 

[BantamBonzo]

My question is, is it possible to put "chirrping" eggs under a silkie and be ok?

 

[lazy gardener]

My question is, is it possible to put "chirrping" eggs under a silkie and be ok?

Not likely. But, stranger things have happened. Normally, a hen has to be broody for at least a couple of weeks to get her broody hormones reved up until she is "ready" to start hatching/mothering eggs/chicks. While Silkies are well known for being good broodies and mothers, the more likely scenario is that she would not sit on the eggs and hatch them, unless she is deep in the hormonal brood of broodiness.

 

[laurieedwards13]

Hi! Im a newbie, so please be patient while I learn. I've never raised chickens before, so when we got several acres and built a home, we decided to give it a try. A friend of ours gifted us with 2 beautiful roosters. We purchased 6 chickens. Everything was going well but I noticed the larger rooster now bullies the other since we got the chickens. One hen went broody and we hatched 4 eggs out of 6. I started integrating the chicks for several hours during the day but locking them back up at night. Pretty soon, mama and chicks voluntarily put themselves up at night in the same place, so I thought it would be ok to leave the door open since the rest of the flock slept together in another coop. The chicks should have been around 6 weeks old this week but either one of the roosters or one of the hens killed them. Pulled their little heads off! I didnt know that chickens would do that! If it was a predator, it was a smart one because our coop is totally enclosed. Is it normal for chickens to do this? I think that we should get more chickens to give each rooster their own "flock" and then seperate them. Help?
Here are some photos:

 

[lazy gardener]

Hi, Laurie. Welcome to BYC. So sorry you lost your babies. I think you had a weasel kill the babies. A weasel can squeeze through any space that you could slip a quarter through. Weasel's primary MO is to decapitate it's victims. And it can kill an entire flock in a single night, including adults. Your weasel will be back. IMO, your set up is pretty much maxed out, space wise. The minimum recommendation of space for a back yard flock is 4 s.f. in coop and 10 s.f. in run per bird. Add a rooster, or add chicks, or have intention of integrating birds in the future, and you are going to need more room than that. Also, regarding predators: chicken wire will keep chickens in, but it is absolutely NOT predator proof. Is your set up on bare ground? If so, any predator can dig under the fencing if you don't have a buried skirt around it. I would also suggest that you keep your best roo, and rehome the other one. When they decide to fight over dominance, it will get very ugly, with a lot of blood shed, and most likely one dead roo. Also, you don't have enough hens to keep 2 roos happy. they will overbreed those hens, causing a lot of stress. Pretty birds. Wishing you the best with your flock.

 

[Folly's place]

x2 on everything mentioned above. One cockbird, bigger coop, and much improved security. Your weasel will be back until all your birds are gone, unless repairs happen ASAP.. Mary

 

[Merry5]

Has anyone had success with combining 2 flocks that are 5 months old. We got 48 straight run assorted brown egg layers chicks in June and once they were out from under the heat lights my daughter took 16, my brother took 16 and we kept 16 at the farm. Two weeks ago we butchered all the roosters except for two. My daughters chicken shed was not finished yet and my brother didn't want to keep his hens so we brought them all to the farm. It was getting too cold to leave them out in the chicken tractor so we planned to put them in the barn for the winter. My daughters buff orpington rooster and the speckled sussex rooster from the farm went at it and we had to separate them right away. Even though we did it after dark and they had roosted for the night the lights from the barn were enough to get them off the roost and they started to fight to the point we feared for the life of the orpinton. We put the orpington back in the cage to try and decide what to do. We ended up the next day putting the sussex rooster with the New Hampshires and the Rhode Ishand Red that had been at my brothers. We put the orpinton rooster in a make shift pen next to them with an Australorp, 3 Welsummers and several Golden Buff. So now we aren't sure if we should try again to put them all together and if so how to go about it. At this point there is a wall separating them so they can hear each other but not see. There is a small chicken door in the wall that we could open so they can go back and forth between the two pens. Should we put a screen of some sort there for a while before we try again to put them together? The reason we want the together is that 1. the one pen is warmer than the other 2. the one pen is more secure than the other and we'd like them to sleep there at night so there would be less chance of predators 3. we only have one heated waterer and don't really want to buy another one. 4. one pen has access to out of doors and the other one doesn't. Any thoughts or advise?
One rooster is with 11 hens and the other with 12.

 

[lazy gardener]

Is the one pen big enough for all of the birds? I'm assuming that when you have them all together as one flock, you will open access to the other pen during the day, but have them all roost in the secure pen at night? Is there a particular reason why you would want to keep 2 roos? If it were my flock, I'd choose the best of the 2 roos, based on temperament first, and conformation second, and invite the other roo for dinner. If you can't decide which roo is the best one, you will have to continue keeping them separated until you do make that decision. While some flocks are successful with 2 roos, if the fighting becomes bloody, I'd simply cull down to one.