big hen bullying smaller chickens

[JammyWammy]

recently added a flock of 3 chickens to the other chicken that i already had before. i bought the 3 chickens with the intention of adding them together. after around a week of the chickens not showing any signs of illness or lethargy, i decided to mix them in. the flock is made out of 2 hens and one rooster, all around a month old except one hen that seems to be younger than that. the rooster was first to challenge the hen once it got into the new place and got beaten in like a minute since the hen is around 3 moths old and relatively bigger than him. afterwards it was just the big hen chasing the other chickens whenever it noticed that they were eating/drinking. right now the rooster and the hen are avoiding the big hen but the smallest hen is strangely fearless for some reason and is getting pecked because of it. is there anything that i should do to avoid the worst case scenario? should i just sit there for the first few days or can i leave them be?

 

[Debbie292d]

The two-month age difference is apparently the problem. Since they're all so young, I'd still think it could have worked, as there are no adults in the mix. I'd give it another day and see how they do together. If there are still problems, I'd take the smallest ones out and put them where the others can see them, if possible, but let them grow a little more so the sizes will eventually even out more. I've had similar-aged chicks as yours live together, but they started as little chicks, so guess that's why there never was an issue.

 

[JammyWammy]

The two-month age difference is apparently the problem. Since they're all so young, I'd still think it could have worked, as there are no adults in the mix. I'd give it another day and see how they do together. If there are still problems, I'd take the smallest ones out and put them where the others can see them, if possible, but let them grow a little more so the sizes will eventually even out more. I've had similar-aged chicks as yours live together, but they started as little chicks, so guess that's why there never was an issue.

how do i know if it's definitely not going to work? like how often would the chicken need to peck the other one for me to have to move it away, like approximately