ADVICE please. "First there were 7 now there are 4..."

[DixieChickMom]

Sooo, I ordered 7 chicks thinking I'd end up with at least 5. They are 6 weeks old now and I lost my first 2 a/r 4 weeks from some kind of bacterial infection (what vet thought). Nursed the others back to health, especially one that was on death's doorstep only to get it well and then it gets mauled by my dog. So now I'm down to 4. My coop/run could hold 10 comfortably. I'm entertaining ordering more chicks, but wonder if I should just hold off and wait until spring, now that I have 4 happy/healthy ones. I guess I'm wondering if I would be pushing my luck. As it seems to not be the best these days. Any advice would be appreciated.

Even though my first experience with raising chicks has been hard, it's been worth it.

 

[Saltysteele]

by the time your new ones were 6 weeks, your older chickens would be 12. if you were to get more this year, i would get them now, as long as your new chicks would have the brooder to themselves. it would be harder to introduce 6-8 week old chicks to chickens ready to lay. i've got 3 turkeys that i just added to my ready-to-lay chickens, one of the turkeys being a week younger than the other two and a bit smaller. i had to remove it, as the chickens had pecked the crapola out of its head. the other two they didn't bother. that little guy, though, easy to single out. it's also easier to add groups of all the same size to an established flock, though they'll all have to be shown their place in the pecking order. it's a hard life in chicken world.

if you waited until next year, you would be introducing new little chicks in with your year-old chickens.

personally, since you've already done the baby chicken thing, i would wait until your older chickens were ready to start laying, and purchase some ready-to-lays. i've seen them going for 5-7 bucks for easter eggers in my area. you can't feed a chicken for 20 weeks for 7 bucks.

however, i've got a 6-yo little girl that absolutely LOVES baby chickens (and grownup chickens). so, i'll be hatching more next year. i may still get a couple easter egger ready-to-lays, though. i bought 7 from TSC, and ended up with 1 hen. i was really looking forward to the colored eggs

anyway, this is just my advice. i'm sure others would do differently. good luck

 

[DixieChickMom]

Thank you so much for the quick reply! I appreciate your insight! One question about buying some ready-to-lay pullets...how do I make sure they don't give my original girls any diseases? I'm sure there's a proper way to introduce them?

 

[Saltysteele]

you would want to keep them in a separate area for a period of time (i've seen some recommend a month), while you watch for problems.

 

[catsew]

We haven't lost any (yet) but we are waiting until next year to start again. We had hatching issues and only have 2 8-week olds one of which is a definite rooster, and a 3 week old single baby. I would order ready ones this year, but don't have the setup to really quarantine time, plus I LOVED raising them from babies. And I wanted to do it again next spring anyway. But we only have room from 8 doing the 4sq ft since we have bad winters, possibly 10, but I'd like to stay around 8 or even 6 would be ok.
So my point was, if I buy more now I won't have room to hatch again next spring and/or keep the babies. So I personally am choosing to wait and now you probably know way more than you ever wanted to about me.

 

[DixieChickMom]

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Thank you!