So break this down for me. My chicks are between 2 + 3 months old. I can let them into the yard and they most likely won't run in all seperate directions? I'm a new mama and the whole thing makes me nervous though I do get its the natural progression. My polish is a roo, can I count on him to keep them kind of together?
Mine usually stick together if they grew up together. Yes the roo will keep tabs on everyone at least mine did. He crowed to everyone. Communication between the birds I think is key!
Ours are 3-4 weeks. We just had 4 out the other day. They hang together. When we took out two it was funny, because the 3 week old stayed very close to the 4 week old. I gave them a couple of worms. The younger ran away to eat. When she got done, they were separated by about 10 feet. She started peeping out a distress call. As soon as I got her to the older one, she started the happy peeping again. So.. they should be fine. I'm more worried about cats, dogs, and hawks for my little fuzzy butts
I expect because they're older, they may split up a bit more & look around better. I started taking mine out on nice days when they were only a couple days old, letting them scratch & run. Now they're 2wks & band together very well. My tractor is up now (they're trying hard to fly & they're quite good at it already!) so I take em out & leave in the tractor in the evenings to play & they wear themselves out after a few hours, once they see me coming for them they come running (not sure WHY cuz they all want to peck me lol). So I can't see that they'd just take off, especially if you go sit out there with them.
I plan on letting mine out tomorrow for the first time. They vary in age from 3 weeks to probably 6. Plan on putting them in an old grass rabbit run that hasn't been used in two years. I like the idea of keeping them fenced in at first.
