Seed223
Songster
We have some babies that are between 6-7 weeks old that we are needing to integrate into our flock (they are quickly outgrowing our bathroom and I just want it to be clean again!). I am almost positive that 3 of the babies are cockerels (there are 8 total) - I am working on finding homes for them maybe with the exception of the blue buff orpington. We already have 1 rooster who is 5 months (cuckoo marans) and is super sweet, also we have 7 hens who are 5 months. They have all be introduced to each other multiple times over the past few weeks through hardware cloth. I can tell our rooster really wants to get to them and show them who is the top dog although he seems to be less aggressive over the past few days. We don't have enough room to build out a separate sleeping coop inside of our current coop for the babies. Is there a good way we can integrate them all together? Would it be best to wait until we find homes for the cockerels? The one who I am concerned most with is French White Copper Marans - he is definitely big for his britches and I am concerned that he and our Cuckoo Marans won't exactly see eye to eye. I've introduced the babies once to about 3 of the hens. There was definitely pecking and we ultimately separated them just because I felt like the babies were really small. Is there a good way to go about this so we can (hopefully) integrate them all within the next week or so? Sorry in advance for the novel!!
. We put them all back in their small coop run outside and the others are now mingling through the hardware cloth. I am going to try having them all out for another 15 min this evening... Do they need to be closer to the same size before we put the little ones in with the big ones overnight? They usually head into the coop around 8:30-9:00... I just don't know how to integrate the two together and don't want the littler ones to get picked on. Thanks so much for responding!
