Adding older hens to existing group

[bnicolette]

Hello all,

We are new to chickens. We got some peeps in May (3 RIR & 2 White Leghorns). One of the RIR's ended up being a rooster so folks advice on this forum was to either get rid of the rooster or add more hens. We've really come to like our rooster and his morning wake up call plus he is such a good protector of the hens. Our chickens free range all day (we have lots of property and lots of forest) but they stay pretty close and will hang out just at inside the tree line to capture the shade during the day when their not walking around eating. The rooster does his job masterfully watching over his girls. Anyhow, I went and got 5 more hens (I was told they are about 1.5 years old) and they came from an (egg farmer??) (he has about 300 chickens he said). The hens are working their way into the pecking order...........which I think is at the very bottom as our original girls bully them but things are settling down here on the 2nd day. Our rooster is splitting his time between our original hens and the new ones. (He's having a great time trying to mate with the new ones (I guess our original girls aren't old enough to interest him yet???). The new hens are giving us a steady stream of eggs (3 on each day so far) but I'm a little concerned about them. So, their legs and feet don't appear to be nearly as yellow as our original hens?? In fact, they are probably more white than yellow although you can tell they have a yellow "hue" to them. Is this normal for commercial hens? Our original hens have what I would say to be a "shiny" coat and really yellow legs. The new hens just look a bit "tattered". Will they change as time goes on with the free ranging food?

Sorry, I know that a long paragraph for such a short question!!!

 

[bnicolette]

I think I found the answer. After some diligent searching I think that the breed of these new birds is: Isa Brown. And looking at pictures online, it seems many of them have white-ish feet/legs.

 

[oldhenlikesdogs]

Hens go through body bleaching, you can tell how long they have been in lay by how much color they lose, legs are one of the places this happens, so maybe this is what you are seeing.

 

[poodlechicks]

Hello Bnicolette!
Chicken keeping is so great. I started out 2 1/2 years ago and I'm enjoying every minute of it.

The only thing that I'd like to add here is that your new flock should be quarantined before being exposed to your existing flock, even if they appear healthy.

The new flock could be incubating a disease, plus the stress of moving could lower their immunity, opening the door to a number of diseases that they can pass to your existing flock.

Quarantine should be held in a place where the flocks are really isolated from one another to avoid transmission of respiratory diseases as well.

I have quarantined chickens before and carefully introduced them to my existing flock. It took a little while for all to figure out the new pecking order, but integration happened and they are all a happy flock now.

Good luck with your chickens!