adding new chickens to older ones??????

[Beckymca]

Hoping I'm in the right place. I have 6 adult hens, given to me about 3 weeks ago, they have settled in nicely. I also have 14 little chicks ranging in age from 2-7 weeks. I've had to pull the 3 youngest as the other 11 were picking on them too much. My goal is to get all of them into one coop, minus the roosters. So maybe a total of 8-9 to add to the 6. At what age can I do this? Should I add them in as groups, like by size? Adding a few bigger ones a week or best to add them all at once? My coop is 8x8 but I'll be opening the front to make it a 8x10, with an attached 15x20 run in. I'm eager to get them all together as the little one are in my hay stall, but I want to keep them safe in the transition. ANY info or link to more info would be greatly appericated!!! Thanks!!!!!

 

[ranchhand]

I usually wait until the young ones are adult size, then I separate the run with wire for a week before turning them all loose together. I find it works a lot better if they can spend a few hours free ranging together before I really mix them.

Then they have fights, but not nearly as bad!

 

[Beckymca]

Thanks, would you say they reach that adult size at about 4 months? I'm afraid the area the 11 are in won't be big enough for them, it is only 6x8. Back to the drawing board................ I had hoped to move them eariler but I'll just have to make something else for them, lol!

 

[henipeni]

Thanks for the info on what I am doing as well. I have free ranged my 5 new 3mo old Americanas with my 4 month red production hens this week. I have a run that I keep in the garage where the little girls stay at night but I am now interested in getting them altogether in the backyard hen house we made for the 6 red hatchlings we got in March. Today I noticed one of the red hens ran out and pulled white feathers out of the leader of the little hens. So, it looks like we may have fights going on in the future. How long do you think that may happen. Will they ever get along?

 

[cami]

it depends n the chicken really at what age you can add them together. today i let my 6 week old silkys out to free range with my 5 1/2 week old pullets. the smallest silky jumped on the leader of the pullets back and started to attack her when she took her raisin then the big leader (she is a HUGE BO) ran like crazy away from her haha and the silky is about 1/4 of her size. it was the funnyest thing ever

 

[woodmort]

I blended 32 7-week old chicks with 10 16-week old pullets on Wednesday. They were originally in two rooms, I just took the door off and let them get to know each other--this gave both groups someplace to escape to if there were being harassed--actually the old chickens had a bigger problem with this than the chicks. Today, for the first time I opened the hatch on the "adult" side to let the chickens into the yard and was almost run over by the pullets trying to escape.

There is one bit of caution I would offer: Since the older birds you have came from a different source than your chicks I would suggest keeping each group isolated to make sure the new ones didn't infect the old ones with something. This is not a certainty but one of the things one should be alert to when blending birds from two different sources.