smellslikechaos
In the Brooder
I have six 18 week old chickens, one bantam rooster with 5 standard pullets. They live outside with a little coop and big run. We are getting a bigger coop this weekend so as soon as we get it, I will put the littles in the old coop in the run. I have 6 littles, one I know is a rooster and he is also a bantam. Two of them are day-olds, three look like 2 weeks-ish, and the big one appears to be 3 weeks maybe a month. I'm worried that my roosters will try to kill each other. If I keep them separate for too long, the young rooster will already be crowing by the time I try to integrate them and the big "little" pullet will already be the size of the oldies. However, if I put them together earlier, the day-olds will probably get squashed! My old rooster used to let me pick him up and would sit on my lap but now he pecks me if I try to touch him I don't know why. If I pick him up with oven mitts or something and handle him a lot will he become more gentle and less likely to be mean to the new roo? What is the best way to go about doing this?