desparate chicken owner - Integrating three 4 month olds into an established flock

[mollycoyote]

I have had so much trouble with my 9 month old hens (Mara, Leghorn and Barred Rock) being constantly aggressive towards the new 4 month old new girls (Orphington, RIR, EE). I am worried that it will just never happen for me and that I'll have to give some of these girls away.

For the last 3 months, the new girls have been in a large dog cage either inside the run or just outside it. The older hens are still pecking at them thru the cage and stalking them when ever they get a chance. I've tried to introduce the new hens into the run (9Lx4Wx5H) (coop is 4x4x4) but its too much carnage for me - one or 2 of them was bleeding after 2 minutes. I thought the fighting would last a few minutes and then subside but the older girls just wont stop the chasing and pecking the younger. the little girls dont fight back at all, they just run.

The dog cage has been inside the run for months! I worry that my run is just too small for 6 birds and this is why it will never work. There's just not enough space for all of them. I've let them out in the yard a few times together and the older birds are more interested in exploring than beating the little ones up. So my plan is to give them outdoors time together more often and put the younger girls in the coop at night when they're bigger (maybe in a month).

I was toying with the idea of attempting to separate the big girls to sort of mess up the pecking order and start it over from scratch.. But I don't know if that will really work and how I would even implement something like that. I remember when my Maran was sick for about 4 days and we separated her, she wasn't attacked by the others when she returned to the flock but they acted like they didn't know her anymore and slept very far away from her for about a week. I'm thinking about keeping one hen in the run with the little ones in the cage and having a friend babysit the other two? I don't know. This sounds so crazy but I'm desperate at this point.

i might have to get a second coop. or give 3 away.

Any advice would be appreciated. I'm so desperate at this point.

 

[Den in Penn]

You are right to be concerned about the size of the coop/run. The area per chicken recommended on this site is 4sq ft. per bird in the coop and 10 sq, ft. in the run. You are under in both for six. If they were out ranging all the time it might be better. The best integrations take place when they have the room and have distractions, like when you have let them out. Your idea of putting the young ones in the coop and slowly adding the older ones back is one of the better ways to overcome the initial rebuffing. Ultimately if you keep them a second coop or a larger one is in order.

 

[mollycoyote]

Thank you so much for responding. I really appreciate the support and feedback!

Molly

 

[whiskeytripping]

I have a pen too small as well, but I only use it as a coop for locking them up at night. If you do this, they should stop the fighting.

 

[PeachygirlGA]

My young ones are only about 3 months old now and I had them side by side in the runs for the whole time. I started letting them free range together about a month ago. This week when they were going in at night my young ones decided to go in the coop with the big ones and now they are all together and happy! I think the key is that when they are all together the little ones have a place to hide from the big ones. Inside my run they have 2 different cages separated by a door and they can run and hide when things get ugly. But so far there has been no blood and they are just slowly accepting them.

 

[donrae]

I agree, you just don't have enough space. You'll need to re-eval your set up and/or number of birds.