Help! Baby chick with mama hen and a sore head is is it safe what should i do?

[5fathens]

thanks, we have a smaller pen within the main coop for our nearly 8 week old chicks, but they are full size hens so a fair bit bigger than our little Polish, we will be popping them in with the rest of the flock at the weekend as they've been getting used to each other in the day for the last couple of weeks and seem to be fairly well accepted. i could put the little polish in the small pen with the polish bantam hens that we already have or a couple of the chicks that are calmer until they're used to each other...i'm just concerned s/he might get squashed if i put her out too soon, but may not be accepted if i leave it too late!

 

[Jt and Chicks]

Can you take a pic on how big she is?

 

[5fathens]

 

[5fathens]

 

[5fathens]

S/he's still rather diddy.....

 

[Jt and Chicks]

She is pretty small. I would say try the plan and then if that doesnt work then comeback and figure out something else

 

[5fathens]

thanks will do, being the only one i can't tell quite how small s/he'll be but the normal sized chicks are already about the same size as the bantam hens at nearly 8 weeks! So think they may be the best bet for forming an alliance!

 

[birdlover2]

thanks will do, being the only one i can't tell quite how small s/he'll be but the normal sized chicks are already about the same size as the bantam hens at nearly 8 weeks! So think they may be the best bet for forming an alliance!

Your plan sounds good, may be the best thing for integrating her with the rest of flock. If the others don't except her or even get really mean and try to kill her, you may just have to put her in the pen alone once the others are grown out, but that may be too late to integrate as you've already said. If the 8 week olds pick on her too much than perhaps try putting her in there with just the others you mentioned, some chicks and polish bantams, and see if that works. Are the polish bantams living with the rest of the flock or seperately?

 

[5fathens]

Thanks yes our two bantam hens live in with the rest of the bigger flock without any issues.

 

[birdlover2]

Thanks yes our two bantam hens live in with the rest of the bigger flock without any issues.

Well then they may be the ideal starting place to introducing the chick, or they may pick on the chick...my mother tried to introduce a few bantam chicks to her bantams and they were really mean and tried to peck their eyes out at first, so be prepared to seperate if things get ugly the first time.