accidentally introduced 5 week old chicks to adult hens!

[trunkman]

I moved my 4 1/2 week old chicks to the coop this past weekend, I seperated the adult hens from the chicks with a pen type gate. Monday morning I opened the coop door for the hens to go into the run for the day, well when I got home I saw my chicks in the run with the hens, I didn't want to mix them cause I was worried the hens would peck and possibly hurt the chicks, some how I left an opening in the gate and the chicks got out of their enclosure. To my surprise the chicks were mingling and playing around the hens without any problem. The hens were just looking at the chicks and probably thinking, whats up with all these hyper little feathery thingys? It was quite funny, so I've been worrying about how I would introducing them to each other for nothing, I love the outcome!!

, and it was all by accident!!!

 

[wisewings]

Lucky You, and what a relief, huh! They must be happy girls. Good for you.

 

[ChickenChik]

I hope I have that good of luck with my new babies and my teens!

Congrats! Things like that always make me nervous!

 

[rancher hicks]

When I bought my CM's from the farm the guy gets the can of scratch and chickens of all ages came running from every direction. Roosters , hens ,chicks , different breeds. I picked out the ones I wanted and he caught them and that was that. So I'm not surprised. Good for you.

 

[4-H chicken mom]

So glad it work out fine. I was scared when I first read the title. I thought I was going to read about a bad outcome. What a happy ending congrats.

 

[Want Less]

Funny how things that you stress over sometimes just fix themselves

 

[Eggstra New]

Ha Ha! I totally understand your situation! The same thing happened to me with my mares and geldings. I was all worried about putting them together. I was taking it at a painfully slow rate. One night in a storm after several weeks of the horses only having ONE fence between them after having several, the storm blew the electric tape down. All the horses were together!!!! AAAAHHHHH!!! I flew outside frantically looking everyone over and they were all like....."uh what is your problem?" And everything was fine after that. Mother Nature told me enough was enough!

 

[fancbrd4me02]

It's funny you mention this. I was just saying to my husband: " I know lots of people have problems with new introductions or different aged birds mixed into thier flocks, but I don't! I wonder why that is?"

My girls seem to like new birds or babies. Today I brought my call ducks out for a swim. I put them in the tub, and set thier surrogate mother "Mr. Ugly" (Who is a silkied cochin cockerel) next to them. Well my whole flock had to come over and see them for themselves. Old hens, new hens, roosters, teens, and babies (about 50 birds total) all surrounded the tub. They examined the ducks, examined Mr. Ugly, and then started scratching around and making the "Look what I found, it's good to eat! Try it!" sound chickens make. The ducks jumped out and the ducks and Mr. Ugly spent about an hour with the flock until I brought them back to the brooder.

 

[nanawendy]

So glad to hear the good outcome, I'll have those issues in a few weeks. I'm kind of scared.

 

[chicken_china_mom]

I took my ducklings out to the coop late last week and put them in the pen that has all my bantams and my two adult ducks, and I waited to see what would happen. Well, absolutely nothing happened. The older ducks eyeballed the babies from a distance, and then ignored them completely, and the chickens never even acknowledged the youngins. And so during the warm days I take the ducklings outside to the pen, and then they come back in at night when the temp drops. They are 5 weeks old, almost 6, but they don't have all their feathers in yet. They still have a lot of down on their backs and bellies, so I don't want to go and leave them out overnight just yet. And they are content to return at night to the tub to sleep, lol.