Adding two more to my flock. Question??

[Mother of All]

I have them separated. They are about 4 to 6 weeks old and I have them in a pen located in my carport away from the rest of my flock. How long should I keep them separated?

 

[ChickenToes]

Keep them separated at least 30 days. After that, if they show no signs of illness, put them in with the rest of your flock.

 

[Happy Chooks]

If your existing flock are adults, you will need to keep the babies separated until they are roughly the same size. (about 13 weeks) It's best if they are in an area where they can see each other for several weeks, but not be able to hurt the babies. When they are old enough, you can put them in at night. There will be chasing, pecking, bullying for a couple weeks before things settle down. As long as there's not blood, let them work it out.

 

[ChooksChick]

I have a little article on this: Integrating new birds to the flock

It's pretty much like new2chooks said, with a few hints.

 

[Coreyboy18]

Quote:
Oh good, thanks for this article! I posted recently about the same thing but didn't get anything. The only thing I worry about is if the new birds have some kind of illness. I checked them and they seem very healthy, nothing from nose or mouth, eyes look healthy, butts look healthy. They've got beautiful wing feathers coming out, nice legs and don't show any signs of being lethargic or unhealthy. Their poop seems normal and they certainly have a nice set of lungs!

I may introduce them today.

 

[patandchickens]

Quote:
Have they been quarantined for a few weeks at least, first? It would really be a lot smarter to quarantine, if you haven't already. Just because they LOOK healthy doesn't mean they ARE -- they can easily be carrying things that you don't know about yet...

Good luck, have fun,

Pat

 

[beth59]

Nice article, Renee. We have four 3 month olds that we just integrated with our 1 year old flock a week or so ago. Our brooder pen and their juvenile pen are in the same coop that the older girls use, so we thought they'd had enough introduction. We've even let them free range together - though they stay in two separate flocks. The older girls (who are normally docile) are still picking on the "teenagers" and one of the poor cockrellls suffered a nasty scalping a couple of days ago (I'm assuming it was one of the older hens). He's doing okay, but separated from the others for now. I'm concerned because it doesn't seem like there's any progess toward civility yet. This is our first time at integrating different groups. To make matters worse, or what may have made matters worse is that we lost a hen and our rooster to a coyote (we believe) last week, so I'm sure that's really upset the social structure. I'm also not getting very many eggs this week from my 1 year olds. Hoping things settle down soon and we return to a peacful, productive flock. Should I be terribly worried yet?

Beth