Adding older birds to my flock

[crchickens]

I am still learning here, so bear with me. I have 12 chickens, all were born in February. I am adopting 6- 2 year old chickens this weekend. What will I have to do the get them used to each other after quarantine, to add them to the coop? What can I expect behaviorally from everyone? The 6 new ones are all hens, and I believe mine are too. What is the best way to introduce them to each other?
I am open to all advice.

Thanks.

 

[chicks are me]

make sure they are all the same size, and introduce the chickens to each a few times so they know each other before you add them to the coop

 

[crchickens]

Okay, so if I keep them separate at night, but allow them to co-mingle during the day, is that a good plan? Will they fight right away if they are going to? My husband travels a lot for work, and I want to make sure I am not alone with a chicken fight on my hands. Would adding some tasty treats make intros go better, or would that cause more reason to fight?

 

[silkiechicken]

I don't have my birds fenced and it has been many years since not keeping a closed flock. (Closed flock is where the only chicks I add are day olds or hatched myself to reduce disease/parasite risk.)

But...

Post quarantine, let them all freely mingle during the day... let them pick their battles and squabble with plenty of space to run away. After a week, I lock up the place the new birds were sleeping, and they followed the rest into the main coop to sleep. Yes there was fighting and picking, but that was that.

For juviniles I grow up, once they are big enough, I just do the same thing. They grow up intermingling, and eventually I just lock em out of their grow up pen and they follow the adults to the big coop.

A chicken fight isn't going to be like getting between a dog fight or anything. Juts let them pick at each others faces and spur one another, they'll figure it out. Getting in the way just prolongs the fight.