Can I put a fully grown chicken in with 4-5 week old "chicks"?

[jimmy0x52]

We have three chicks that are 4-5 weeks old at this point. They're living outside in the coop.

One of our friends has a chicken they'd like to give us as well but it's fully grown. Any concerns with putting a fully grown chicken in with chickens that are that young? I'm going to have to put both chick feed and layer feed in the coop.

Any advice BYC?

 

[speckledhen]

The adult may kill them. Adults don't usually cotton to chicks unless it's a broody hen whose hormones are set for parenthood already.

 

[ThomsonCentennialFarm]

Several. First, the chicken in question should be quarantined from your chicks for a month (at least) to make sure she's not sick, doesn't have lice, mites, etc. You wouldn't want to kill all your chicks because of a sick hen. Second, the hen could possibly be aggressive towards your chicks and injure or kill them.

If at some point you do have a full size hen or hens in a coop together with chicks, you can make a creep feeder that only the chicks fit into where the chick feed is located. The hens' feed should be hung at their back height above where the chicks can reach (as layer feed has calcium and is not good for growing chicks).

 

[jimmy0x52]

So at what age or level of maturity do you put them together? They seem to be pretty fully feathered that this point - and they outnumber her three to one. She's also fairly well socialized as she's coming from a coop with many (15+) chickens.

 

[ThomsonCentennialFarm]

You can put chicks in with older chickens when they are physically the same size, after a proper period of introduction. There are a couple of articles on here about introducing new chickens to a flock. This of course should be after the proper quarantine period.

 

[speckledhen]

You put them together when the youngsters are close to her size. I never put young birds less than about 14 weeks old in with adults.

 

[jimmy0x52]

Thanks for that additional info. I have a small dog kennel (wire) that's about 4-5 sqft that I could seclude her to but I don't really have another coop I could put her in. do you think that would be enough living space for a single chicken? She wouldn't have a whole lot of room for moving around unless I let her out.

 

[ThomsonCentennialFarm]

Yes, that should be plenty of space for her.

 

[jimmy0x52]

Sorry for the massive amount of questions. How secluded does she need to be? Is it a lack of physical contact entirely? Like could I put her in the dog kennel inside the chicken coop and just pull her out individually and let her run around a bit?

I may just tell my friend to hold onto her for another 4-6 weeks until my chicks are a bit more mature.

 

[ThomsonCentennialFarm]

She shouldn't be anywhere that she can have contact with the chicks. It's the transmission of disease you worry about during that quarantine period. Better safe than sorry!