Aloha From Kauai!

[pennyJo1960]

Welcome to Backyard Chickens. This is a great place to explore and hang out.

 

[Jessgitalong]

 

[sourland]

Welcome to BYC, and good luck for a successful hatch.

 

[Debbie292d]

Hiya, and welcome to BYC!

You can try the silkie to see if she'd take them, but trying is also scary to me as I've done that in the past. It seemed like one broody took to them immediately and seemed happy. I went back an hour later to check and she was now broody on a different nest and the babies were sitting there crying.

Integration for us works best just growing them up to be four to five months old. At five months old, they're the same size and it works well. We built the facilities to do this as in growout pens, but if you don't, I'd try @DobieLover's method here.

 

[N F C]

That was fun to watch, thanks for sharing!

 

[Jessgitalong]

Hello and welcome to BYC! Glad you joined.


I didn't think this was possible.

If you build the brooder inside the coop with hardware cloth separating it from the rest of the flock and use a mama heating pad or brooder plate for the heat source, you can begin integrating the chicks into the flock starting at 4 weeks old. You fashion chick size doors in the brooder so they can come and go but the bigs cannot get in. It takes about 2-4 weeks before the chicks stop going back to the brooder and roost with the flock. As long as you have enough space, it goes pretty smoothly.

We have a separate area where we keep Silky already, so as long as they don’t need a brooder by then, it should be fine to put them in there at 4 weeks, right?

 

[DobieLover]

We have a separate area where we keep Silky already, so as long as they don’t need a brooder by then, it should be fine to put them in there at 4 weeks, right?

No. They need to be exposed to her and she to them while they are growing. It's part of the integration process. You can't just toss them in there when they're 4 weeks old.

 

[Debbie292d]

We have a separate area where we keep Silky already, so as long as they don’t need a brooder by then, it should be fine to put them in there at 4 weeks, right?

An adult silkie will kill them at that age if you just put them in there. She'll never let them by the food/water either. They can be as hostile as any other breed of chicken. The only way is if you set it up like mentioned above, where they have an escape and their own food/water. If it's a large enough area, you could put clutter in there like leaning pallets, wooden boxes on their side, etc.

 

[Jessgitalong]

No. They need to be exposed to her and she to them while they are growing. It's part of the integration process. You can't just toss them in there when they're 4 weeks old.

Okay. Thanks! We can separate them in the same pen, then, so they can become familiar with each other first.

 

[Tookie]

Hello, welcome to BYC! We're glad to have you here.