Adding two hens to my flock

[Kikicounihan]

I am new to the chicken world and have learned a lot over the past few months. Everything has been going well and we are having a lot of fun waiting for our first eggs! However, after getting some advice here, I realize I probably need to add a couple more hens to the group. I got my four bantams as a straight run at just a few days old. They will be four months this week. Turns out we have two hens and two roosters and I was advised that the roosters will be very hard on the hens and adding two more hens would help a lot. I am not worried about quarantine because I am going to purchase the two hens from a trusted breeder. I am looking at two that are the exact same age, maybe a couple of weeks older, but they will be full size chickens instead of bantams. So, what do I do to safely introduce them? Some say to plop them in at night, and they will hopefully wake up together and just figure it out. I let our chickens out each day to poke around in the large goat pen, should I try putting the two new ones in here and then add the four to that area for the day to interact before putting them all in the coop? I just want to make sure there isn't too much damage and that I don't lose anyone! Thanks for the advice.

 

[Leah S]

just added 4 new girls to my flock of 7, now 11! i had them in a cage (made from chicken wire) right next to my original girls for about 2 weeks. they could see each other and check them out through the fence. I let the new girls in while the others were out free ranging. i left the cage open so the new girls could go in and out as they pleased. once 3 weeks time past i took away the cage and they stay in the coop. there was 2 waters and feeders. they all seem to get along, but we have breeds that are calm so that may have helped. they will squabble from time to time, but nothing too bad. they will get nasty when it's time to roost. I added a new roost and that seems to have solved to bickering about roosting.
i did read that you should quarantine new hens for up to 30 days before adding them to the flock.. i did not know about this until about 8 days into my introduction. i figured if there was a disease that was to be spread, it would have done so during that time. i did check over the new girls and watched their eating, drinking and pooping.
hope this was helpful!