We need to give 2 of our hens away. They are great hens, but we are getting way too many eggs! A friend of mine has a great hen house and two hens that are old and no longer laying. She offered to take my two hens and we are wondering how to merge the hens for the best results. I suggested keeping the two new ones separate but visible... like separating the two groups with chicken wire for a few days so they can see each other, but not attack each other. I also suggested she not free range the two new ones for a few days until they are comfortable in the new coop. Does anyone have anything else to suggest?? Thanks!
I just added a few mature Easter Eggers to my Barred Rock flock, and it went without a hitch. They had a couple of showdowns but after just a couple of minutes they were a part of the flock. Being they're older it go alright, from what I've seen it seems like the aged hens establish thier order quick and fast.
Your suggestion about keeping them seperated sounds great, also, when she does mix them together, she should slip the new ones onto the roosts with the old ones late at night when they're all settled in and sleepy. They'll just short of shuffle over, cluck a bit in a grumbly brumbly sort of way, and drift off to sleep again. In the morning, their fuzzy bird brains will be puzzled but more interested in getting to the morning tasks of feed, water, nests, clucking, bugs, greens, scratching, etc etc etc.
Awhile back I put my pullets with my hens. I tried putting them together when the pullets were about 12 weeks old and the hens were about 1 1/2 yrs old. I put lots of scratch out for them. It didn't go to well. The hens chased and picked on the pullets terrible so I separated them. They had been in different coops and adjacent runs for over a month prior to the first time I tried to put them together. When I put them together the last time at about 20 weeks, I had two hens that were terrible and jumping on the pullets and pulling their feathers out. I took the two most aggressive hens out and separated them from the rest. They were put into a separate pen for a week where all the rest of the chickens could walk around them see them but couldn't touch. When I did let them out, I put plenty of treats and scratch out hopefully to distract them. It worked for the most part, but for one of the hens. She was still very aggressive. When I saw her jump on one of the pullets I sprayed her with water from a hose that is next to the coop. She went running into the coop and didn't come out for awhile. I have repeated the hose caper a few times. She has calmed down some but still somewhat chases the pullets. When the pullets were about 20 weeks old I switched coops and put the pullets in the hens coop and the hens in the pullets coop and closed the runs so they couldn't interact but could still see each other. After another week went by I put them back together. It went fairly well. One of my goals was to try to get everyone to lay their eggs in the same coop and nest boxes. Now they all stay in the same coop. Sorry this turned out to be so lengthy Edited for spelling.