rhdelgrande
Hatching
- Apr 7, 2015
- 2
- 0
- 7
New Chicken Owner here, well sorta new, I have had chickens in the past but the chickens have not been at my home so they have been hard to keep up with and there have been various occasions where something has gotten into the cage and killed some, so now we are down to one chicken named Solitude. We are now building a chicken coop at our home to keep the chickens safe and hopefully make a better more functional chicken coop. We are inspired by the Wichita Chicken Coop and hope to be able to make something like that. We are getting 6 chickens to begin with, 3 different kinds with two each. We are for sure getting two Rhode Island Reds, two Dominiques, and we aren't sure about the next two, maybe Buff Orpington's. Since we still have our older chicken we are going to try to relocate her to our new coop but I was wondering if she would try to hurt the other ones. Do any of you guys have experience with bringing one hen to many chicks? We do not like keeping her out there by herself but do not want her to hurt the new ones, any tips? Thank you!
and Welcome To BYC! Sorry for your losses. Good luck with the soon to be new chicks! With combining the chicks and Solitude, It is best to wait until the chicks are about her size, and have a long period of the two being able to see each other but no touching ... through wire seem to work best, ie dividing the coop into two sections or keeping the new/younger ones in a cage inside the coup for a couple of weeks to a month at least. The chickens will get to know each other and sort of work out a pecking order before actually coming in contact with each other. After a week or two, letting them free range together is a good idea and should help... It will take a couple of weeks to get the pecking order sorted out. There is a nice article in the Learning Center on integrating flocks you might like to check out, the part about actually combining them is after the quarantine section 
