breed matches

[greenthumb89]

the chicks i have are all different species including red and brown sex links, australorp, standard cochin, salmon favorelle, and orpington. now these are still chicks at all different ages but none laying size. i just got 3 laying size ameraucanas. what im asking is if they will all get along, i tried to get calm gentle breeds but the ameraucanas were just given to me.( they are ameraucanas because they were a breeders culls, they have blue and slate black legs all that is wrong with them is a twisted toe on one foot of each of them). thanks

 

[miss_thenorth]

If your ameracaunas are full grown, i believe you need to wait until the chicks are full grown too, or the big bird will probably kill the smaller ones.

 

[greenthumb89]

i was gonna slowly introduce them together while i watched

 

[rebeccakeesee]

I have mixed diffrent ages before. I say throw them all together accept the tiny ones will have to be seperated. And the medium size ones should have a place in the pen to hide from the Big ones. I've seen a cardboard box with little Chick holes cut in the side. Even put a small area for smaller hens in my own hen house. And just keep an eye on them, If they draw blood on a flock member, remove her till her wound is healed or they will take her out...

Over all they will get used to the head hen and follow her around after a wile.
It even turned out I had an older hen that loves to play with my teenagers. She loves getting involved with the chicken stairdowns and sneaking up on the younger pullets..

 

[onthespot]

I am trying to blend my mille fleur cockerel with the mottled crew. He is a month younger and they are clucking and he is still peeping. I finally put him in a cage, inside a larger cage with all the mottleds loose around him. It has been a few days and they still want to kill him, including the pullets, when i leave his little door open during food and water changes. I will leave him in there until he starts to crow and drag a wing, then take the mottled roo boys out and probably most of the hens too, just leave him with a couple, or maybe one, and introduce the rest one by one... I can NOT afford to lose this cockerel. If I have to he will live solo and I will AI until I get new babies to raise up that will know him as bigger and do that if I have to. He was an only surviving chick from an incubator match, which makes it even harder for him to adjust becaus he didn't develop good social skills.

 

[a2ms4chickens]

I just introduced 4-11 week old RIRs with 2 RIR bantam hens, 1 RIR bantam rooster, 1 BR, 1 BO and 1 red-sexlink. They were in a large animal kennel in the chicken run for about 2 1/2 weeks, so the other chickens could get used to them.

Then at night, we added the chicks onto the lower perch. In the morning, all was well. There was a couple days of the chicks being chased around by the RIR bantam hens, but no blood was drawn. They are getting along pretty well, as long as the older chickens stay out of the chicks food. For some reason, they love the start & grow crumbles.

I did wait until the chicks were about the size of the BO and red-sexlink before I took them out of the cage.

Good luck!!

 

[newchickmom]

I just mixed my 11 month old australorps with my 4 month old buff orphingtons.
I introduced them gradually by letting them free range together, for about a couple hours, every evening for about a week.
Both breeds have a calm attitude, so we have not had any fighting or pecking at all.

 

[greenthumb89]

thanks everyone!!