Chicks from two feed stores?

[Kanga77510]

So feed store A in town had the rainbow babies. We got four. I went to feed store B the next day to pick up a few other things (each store has better prices on things, so I make the drive). Store B has chicks that I actually want in my flock, SLW and Buff Orps. I've been thinking about going and getting a few chicks from B.

Can I mix the chicks from A and B if they're about the same age? My gut is telling me no, because of disease transmission. If I do get chicks from B what's the ideal quarantine before I mix the chicks?

 

[sparkles2307]

I was naughty last year and dumped my feed store chicks right in with my cackle chicks... and no one died or anything...

 

[trilyn]

Do it, in my opinion the whole quarantine thing is for older birds coming from a different place to yours. Chicks haven't had time to develop diseases, if I'm wrong, please correct me. I just put ameraucana babies with cuckoo marans babies and they both came from 2 different places, they're all fine!

 

[PunkinPeep]

I'm sure that if we're being really really super extra careful and technical, the two flocks should be quarantined from each other, but i wouldn't.

1. At that age, coming directly from the hatchery (assuming they did) to the feed store, they are much much much less likely to have contracted something than at older ages.
2. The two flocks from the two feed stores have probably been exposed to about the same stuff all around.
3. For me, the difficulty of integrating the two flocks six weeks from now far far far outweighs the miniscule (sp?) chance that one of them has anything that you would be able to prevent at this point. From a social (chicken sociality that is) aspect, the earlier you integrate them, the better.


That's my two cents.....or maybe 4.

If the chickens were older - especially more than 8 weeks or so - ish, i would adamantly recommend a 4-6 week quarantine before integrating. A chicken can come into contact with a lot of things in that amount of time, and it's too hard to account for what.

 

[sparkles2307]

So I wonder if the quarantine thing goes for ducks too....oops...