Need some advice....... We have 16 week old BR and BO in the coop. We have 6 week old assorted breeds in the brooder. There's a HUGH difference in the size of these birds. There are 16 large hens and 26 little ones. Could we just put them all together after dark and see what happens? I am open to ANY and ALL advice.....Thanks in advance Bill
That might work, if they are a docile group. What I do that works pretty well is when they are roosting at night, then when they wake up they are bosom buddies.
Sure, you could. But what you're may well see is the little ones getting terrorized, maybe even hurt. I've still got my 11 week olds in separate housing from my adult hens. I let them free range together (under supervision), but I don't pen them up together yet. In another month or so, when there isn't much of a size differential, I'll let them stay in the same housing.
I use separate "grow out" housing. For the first 3, maybe 4 weeks, I put up a temporary bit of poultry fencing to keep the kids separate from the adults. They can all see and hear and smell each other, and chest bump through the fence and all that safe interaction, but nobody gets hurt. Then I take down the temporary fence. By that time, everybody is used to everybody else. Sometimes the Big Chickens will have to teach the youngsters they simply must hang out on the periphery of any Treat session - no dashing in ahead of higher ranking ladies! - but other than that, and an occasional squawk as a Big Chicken puts a little one in its place, no major fusses. They've got to get closer in size to the original flock members before it's all that safe to let them intermingle. Now, I've got some bantam breeds, and that was interesting to watch, because the banties will NEVER be 'closer' to the same size as the original flock members!
I just put in 10 4 week old Wyandotte's chicks into the main coop last night. They look happy, and none of the girls are messing with them. In fact they are all hunting down cracked corn as I type here. I do have hens that are not very aggressive with one another, and a number of them have just broken brood. I think that is helping. Or I could be just lucking out. So in the past week I have added a total of 20 chicks in to the main coop. The little roos are going to go off to auction soon, and I am still not sure which hens will stay other than the frizzle banty.
I am in the process of intergrating my two 3 month old pullets with my 1 1/2 yr old hens. They have been seperated by mesh for 5 weeks now. When I put them in with the big hens the hens still chase them and grab feathers. I would seperate them where they can see each other and let them grow a little bigger before intergrating them - just my opinion.
I have 6 five week olds that intermingle in the chicken run with 3 four month olds. They usually ignore each other. Occasionally, the older ones will chase and peck at the babies, but the babies keep their distance. At night I have a big gunea pig cage that the babies run into and stay the night in the coop in that. The big girls all load into the same box and leave the babies alone. I won't let them stay all together in the coop until they're about the same size. So far so good.
