Combining older chickens not raised together

[smwoodie]

I have a group of 4 hens and 2 roosters that are a year old, and I am buying 8 hens that are a year old,but they were not raised together. Can I just put them together when I get them or do I need to seperate them for a while? Thanks for your help.

 

[ChickieKeeta]

The chickens should be quarentined before you combine
them. You can search"quarentine" and others more knowledgable will answer your post.

 

[cackler]

We bought 3 hens one week and the next week we a friend of mine gave us 6 more. We stuck them in together without any problems. We're totally new at this so we didn't have any idea if this would work - but it did with no problems. Now we have 16 5 week olds that we're going to have to integrate!

 

[redroosta]

Yeah, they will fight a little until they establish the pecking order. takes about a month or so

 

[vnploveschickens]

You need to quarantine the new birds for 30 days to make sure they have no illnesses or diseases before introducing them to your own flock. They should not even be breathing the same air.

There have been threads where whole flocks had to be culled because they were not quarantined.

Its better to be safe than sorry.

 

[Judy]

Here you go:

https://www.backyardchickens.com/web/viewblog.php?id=2593-adding-to-your-flock