Adding to the flock.

[Mahonri]

I have 18, 7.5 month old hens... I'm getting about a dozen nice brown eggs every day.

This week I will be introducing a 15 week old buff orp and EE, a 12 week old cinnamon queen and three, 5 month old leghorns. (white, brown and a california with feathers on her legs, weird huh?).

I'm worried about the cinnamon queen getting picked on as she is so small. The EE also has her tail feathers picked out and that worries me. Wish I had two coops! (But I do have them isolated in a pen)

Any suggestions?

 

[The Chicken Lady]

A lot of people suggest causing major upheaval in the coop in order to assault the chickens with more newness than just new flock members. This could include:

- sneaking into the coop at night and rearranging all the chickens on the roosts, including the newbies (you could do this for several days, just to confuse them a lot)
- moving their food and water from inside to outside or outside to inside
- cleaning their coop and putting a huge new pile of shavings (or other bedding) in the coop to distract them
- adding a big dish of sand to their run for dustbaths
- treats, treats, treats
- adding branches or other new "toys" to the run

The more distractions you give your chickens, the more they'll find to do other than picking on the new members.

 

[Mahonri]

We clean the coop every week. We gave them a bunch of yogurt today... I think I'll go put some new stuff in the run and in the coop. Thanks.

 

[Joy1]

I introduce the newbies at night so that they wake up together.

 

[FrontPorchIndiana]

Is there a way you can section off a small part of the coop with wire so the newbies can hang out there for a few days and be seen but not touched by the others. That's worked for me so far.

 

[FLOWERPOT]

Thats what I do too.
They can see each other and get used to the newbies being there as part of the flock, But cant get to them to pick on. After about a week, they can be released into the group, no longer new.