Adding Younger Chicks

[thriftyplants]

Hi everyone!

I'm new to backyard chickens and I have my first 3 chicks at 2 1/2 weeks old (2 sapphire olive eggers, 1 unknown black chick) I got them all at Rural King when they were just unfeathered balls of fluff. The two olive eggers are "supposed" to be sexed female. I was only intending on getting 2 at first but decided on 3 to benefit their social lives a bit. I asked the guy to go ahead and get me a third, the breeds were all mixed and he just picked one so I'm not sure if she's olive egger or if it was a straight run unsexed chick. She is larger than the others and feathering slower. Anywaysss, I didn't realize how likely it is to get mis-sexed chicks, even if they are claimed to be female, and end up with roosters I would potentially consider keeping a Cockerel if I ended up with one and it was...errrr.... tame, but it's unfortunately illegal to keep a rooster within city limits where I live. So, that brings me to my question. If I end up with some Roos, I plan on getting more chicks and trying again to achieve at most 4 hens. How would I go about introducing new chicks to older chicks if some of my current ones end up being hens?

Thanks for the help!

 

[Wezdin]

So you will need 2 pens, around what age difference are we talking? When integrating any chickens together i always put them in see-but don't-touch pens so they can become aware of each others existence. Don't know your setup but I then let them free range together under supervision to make sure things don't get too ugly.
One important thing to remember is that pecking is going to happen, it's natural and necessary to establish the pecking order.

 

[thriftyplants]

So you will need 2 pens, around what age difference are we talking? When integrating any chickens together i always put them in see-but don't-touch pens so they can become aware of each others existence. Don't know your setup but I then let them free range together under supervision to make sure things don't get too ugly.
One important thing to remember is that pecking is going to happen, it's natural and necessary to establish the pecking order.

Thank you so much for your informative reply! The chicks would be 4-6 weeks in age difference at most. I can build a second pen next to my current run to house new chicks in and supervise them together. It all just depends on if I have any cockerels I need to rehome before getting more chicks to replace them. Hopefully when my current chicks are around 6 weeks I can know for sure