About moving 6 week old chicks into protected location inside main coop and food (?)

bayareapilot

Crowing
13 Years
Jun 8, 2010
317
294
291
San Francisco
So, other than the look-no touch approach which I've always done in the daytime when gradually merging chicks to the flock, in the past, I've always put them in their own temporary coop until they are much older and then dismantling the temp coop so they can stay in the main coop. Probably through dumb luck that has worked, but I was looking for them a bit initially when it was time to head inside.

Fast forward to now (or at least in two more weeks from today when they will be six weeks old). In my old 'method' they always had food and water in their temporary coop at night. In this new method, my plan is to place them in a protected spot (initally) in the main coop with my two and three year old hens and rooster - but in the main coop I do not leave any food/water in the coop and keep that outside of the coop for when my hens and rooster eat and drink in the morning (cut down on rodent problems totally). Anyway, I was thinking that these little gals will be 6 weeks old. I'd like to do the same for them, that is they eat and drink in the morning but no food or drink inside their special coop enclosure. I figure not having the food in the in-coop 'isolation pen' will eliminate the hens/rooster from wanting some of their food - in other words drawing more attention to them than is likely warranted.

So, I have been trying to think this out before posting the question... What I don't know is if 6 week old chicks can NOT have access to food/water, at nighttime and still have enough reserve to wait and eat come morning? I have a little Blink cam in the chick brooder and I do notice, now and then, during the night, they'll venture out from underneath the brooder plate to have a midnight snack here and there. out to have a few bites to eat and then go back under the brooder plate. Of course they just turned 4 weeks today, so I wouldn't expect them to be able to 'hold out' long from eating. BUT when they are 6 weeks old will I safely be able to leave them without food and water at night in the coop (protected space initially) and have them eat in the morning (their own food) like the adult hens and rooster do?

Thanks in advance......
 
When chicks are raised with a broody hen, they go all night without eating, from the very first day. So going "all night" without food can be fine.

But I can think of two ways your situation may be different than chicks with a broody hen:

But that "all night" with a broody hen means the hours of darkness. If you shut the chicks in before dark, and let them out well after sunup, it makes a longer time for them to go without food. Whether it is enough longer to be a problem, I do not know. (I also know that days & nights are longer or shorter in some places than others, and at some seasons than others. I would guess that up to about 12 hours is probably reasonable, but more than 16 hours would be too long, and I'm not sure for times in between.)

Will your chicks have a place to eat in the run, where the hens and rooster cannot bother them? Because if they go all night without food, they will want to eat first thing in the morning, and they will want to really stuff their crops before bedtime. Those are the same times the older chickens most want to eat, so the chicks might get pushed aside. Waiting a little longer before they can eat in the morning is probably not a big deal (unless the "night" was really long), but they might have trouble if they cannot fill up in the evening. A nice full crop at bedtime means they can spend most of the night digesting food, but an empty crop at bedtime means an entire night without food.

Overall, I think your plan would most likely work fine, but I don't know enough details to be sure. And of course the behavior of the chickens themselves can make a big difference, because not all chickens act quite the same as each other.
 
When chicks are raised with a broody hen, they go all night without eating, from the very first day. So going "all night" without food can be fine.

But I can think of two ways your situation may be different than chicks with a broody hen:

But that "all night" with a broody hen means the hours of darkness. If you shut the chicks in before dark, and let them out well after sunup, it makes a longer time for them to go without food. Whether it is enough longer to be a problem, I do not know. (I also know that days & nights are longer or shorter in some places than others, and at some seasons than others. I would guess that up to about 12 hours is probably reasonable, but more than 16 hours would be too long, and I'm not sure for times in between.)

Will your chicks have a place to eat in the run, where the hens and rooster cannot bother them? Because if they go all night without food, they will want to eat first thing in the morning, and they will want to really stuff their crops before bedtime. Those are the same times the older chickens most want to eat, so the chicks might get pushed aside. Waiting a little longer before they can eat in the morning is probably not a big deal (unless the "night" was really long), but they might have trouble if they cannot fill up in the evening. A nice full crop at bedtime means they can spend most of the night digesting food, but an empty crop at bedtime means an entire night without food.

Overall, I think your plan would most likely work fine, but I don't know enough details to be sure. And of course the behavior of the chickens themselves can make a big difference, because not all chickens act quite the same as each other.
 
Many thanks for your in-depth reply!

My plan is to have an area that only the chicks will be able to access at least while they're still on the medicated chick feed. Basically would consist of an enclosure that only they could get through at their relatively smaller size it would have the water and food sheltered for them which they could access in the morning.

The way I'm envisioning this happen, is that in the evening I bring them over into the little special holding area inside the main coop. It would provide screened separation from the others while allowing them to feel immersed in the coop with the chickens and all getting a sight of the newbies that they saw earlier in the day. Then of course in the day I put the pullets out into their little personal corral area where their food and water will be located in a safe location for them to interact with the see but don't touch.

Then of course as the interactions looked okay through the daytime corral I would create a opening on the gate just wide enough for them to go in and go out basically giving them an area where they could peek out and explore but run back in if they were getting too much attention. Understand too I would be doing this with me right there to watch what was going on especially initially.

The thing I found attractive about the method of putting them in the coop at night is one, it homes them to the coop as a location where they should sleep so that's one less adjustment to make there and also it gives the hens and the rooster a chance to get used to these new little creatures in their area at night. What I have for them is basically a screened vertical rectangle that will be sheltered on two sides that is the long side that would go against the entry door that I enter in and out of and then sheltered on the side of one of the walls. The idea there is that they would have a protected area where if there was any sort of fuss in the early morning when the others started getting up they could have an area that they could move back against and they could not be accessed because of the wall and the door creating sort of a shield from those two sides of the four-sided rectangle so to speak.

Thanks again for your insight like most of the time when I do these things I kind of play it by ear and see how things work out. Actually since you raise these little creatures from day old chicks you want them to have a successful experience. So I'm always looking for an optimum way to make things work the most efficiently for both parties.

As I mentioned in my previous integration, the rooster was totally cool with the presence of the bullets but the girls were a little bent out of shape about it. And this was all despite the fact that they had done the look but don't touch thing for a fair while until I gradually opened the area so they could merge with the main flock. Didn't have any major squabbles just to sort of things you would expect to see. But the rooster in this case was just fine with my golden comets. I guess he was thinking well at some point they're going to grow up I'm going to have more girlfriends. :)
 
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