Can you put different age chicks together?

[cchardwick]

Does anyone know what is acceptable in terms of putting together different age chicks? Can you put day old chicks in with week and a half old chicks? I have two incubators going and they are separated by about a week and a half but I don't want to have two separate brooders going.

 

[Darklingstorm]

I personally wouldn't put them together at least not right away. I would give the day olds at least a couple of days to build strength before combining. It also depends on breed too. If you have a mixed breeds and some are smaller than other (bantams & large fowl) then I would definitely not mix the little ones in with the bigger ones.

 

[gardendufus]

When I had this same question, I searched some of the other threads. I wasn't incubating, but was bringing in day olds from a hatchery. The consensus was that up to 3 weeks old (some said 4) there should be no problems. I followed this, and when I got the day olds, immediately put them in with 3 week olds. I had no problems, they just went in fine. They were all LF breeds. That's just my experience tho, not written in stone.

Two weeks later, I brought in more day olds (now the older ones were 5 weeks). I ended up having to separate the 5 week olds from the group, they picked on the little ones a lot.

Just sayin.

 

[cchardwick]

When I had this same question, I searched some of the other threads. I wasn't incubating, but was bringing in day olds from a hatchery. The consensus was that up to 3 weeks old (some said 4) there should be no problems. I followed this, and when I got the day olds, immediately put them in with 3 week olds. I had no problems, they just went in fine. They were all LF breeds. That's just my experience tho, not written in stone.

Two weeks later, I brought in more day olds (now the older ones were 5 weeks). I ended up having to separate the 5 week olds from the group, they picked on the little ones a lot.

Just sayin.

Thanks for the info, this helps a lot!