Adding day old chicks to 1 week old chicks

[StephanieH]

I found a ton of info on about introducing younger birds in with older birds, but mine are going to be only a week apart in age and very young. Should I set up a second brooder or can I put them together, perhaps with a barrier or hiding places? What would you do? Had to get my EE's last week because they didn't plan to have more when I got my RIR's this week.

 

[kipper]

We had a similar situation two years ago. We made sure the younger chicks were stable and healthy (4 or 5 days in a separate brooder), then mixed and matched them in two brooders. Two brooders only because we didn't have one large enough for all of them. It was fine, they were so young and not territorial yet. There was about 8-9 days age difference. Best of luck!

 

[StephanieH]

That was my instinct. Thanks for the reply!

 

[missydcpc]

I have 1+ week olds in with my 3 day olds. I put up to 3 week olds with the 3 day olds as I was doing this. Only had to seperate with a board part of the brooder once with my 2 week old barred rocks and the 3 day old red pullets (i think it was the color difference. The 3+ week old Wyandottes were absolute angels with the 2 day old marans and 3 day old buff orpingtons. They were all together for over a week. I only removed the Wyandottes because I needed to move my older chicks to make room for 12 new 3 day olds!

 

[felidaet]

There should be no problems mixing chicks that are 1 week difference in age. 2 weeks age difference is usually fine. A lot of people feel 3 weeks difference is fine but I had a bad experience with this. I had to separate them until the younger ones were about 1 week old. Then I mixed them.

 

[calicokat]

So glad to hear of folks' success with this. I have 3 one week olds, and there are 12 eggs in the bator due to hatch tomorrow or Friday. I was thinking that it would be ok to mix them together, but it always nice to hear from someone who's tried it already