Adding new hens to existing flock

[lemonlaw]

My preschool class hatched 9 chicks in April. 3 comets, 3 golden lace wyandottes and 3 black australorpes. They are now 7 weeks old and doing really well. Three families will be taking the chicks and adding them to their existing flocks. The other flocks all have 1 year old hens. One house also has a rooster.

I have the girls in a run during the day and inside at night in two ferret cages. They are getting WAY TOO small for the ferret cages and was hoping to get them to their forever homes soon. However, I am reading that chicks should be at least 4 months old before they are integrated into an existing flock. I don't have a coop because I have never kept chickens- only hatched and placed. Their nighttime home is way too small for these girls. Does anyone have any advice? Is it too early to give them to their new families? Should I keep them for the next two months before handing them over? And if so, without a coop, is that even possible?!

HELP!! I want to give these ladies the best chance I can!

 

[aart]

I would leave that up to the new owners, in fact I would have stipulated it before agreeing to hatch.

They will/should learn how to integrate new chickens into their flocks....it takes some preparation and foresight.




Here's some notes I've taken on integration that I found to be very helpful.......
......take what applies or might help and ignore the rest.
See if any of them, or the links provided at the bottom, might offer some tips that will assist you in your situation:

Integration of new chickens into flock.

Consider medical quarantine:
BYC Medical Quarantine Article
Poultry Biosecurity
BYC 'medical quarantine' search

Confine new birds within sight but physically segregated from older/existing birds for several weeks, so they can see and get used to each other but not physically interact. Integrating new birds of equal size works best.

For smaller chicks I used a large wire dog crate right in the coop for the smallers. I removed the crate door and put up a piece of wire fencing over the opening and bent up one corner just enough for the smallers to fit thru but the biggers could not. Feed and water inside the crate for the smallers. Make sure the smallers know how to get in and out of the crate opening before exposing them to the olders. this worked out great for me, by the time the crate was too small for the them to roost in there(about 3 weeks), they had pretty much integrated themselves to the olders.

If you have too many smallers to fit in a crate you can partition off part of the coop with a wire wall and make the same openings for smallers escape.


The more space, the better. Birds will peck to establish dominance, the pecked bird needs space to get away. As long as there's no blood drawn and/or new bird is not trapped/pinned down, let them work it out. Every time you interfere or remove new birds, they'll have to start the pecking order thing all over again.

Multiple feed/water stations. Dominance issues are most often carried out over sustenance, more stations lessens the frequency of that issue.

Places for the new birds to hide out of line of sight and/or up and away from any bully birds.

Read up on integration..... BYC advanced search>titles only>integration
This is good place to start reading:
https://www.backyardchickens.com/a/adding-to-your-flock