How do I introduce my new chickens with my others? Please Please Help!

[Frozen Feathers]

My younger ones are being kept in the coop, just separated. The big guys can see them, but can't get near them. I do have a"playpen" (my tractor plans have been put on hold ) that I'll let the babies play in outdoors, with supervision. The older ones seem to ignore them.

When I go to merge the two flocks, I believe it will go smoothly. Of course I'm sure their will be a little chaos, but not much. I've done this in the past and it seems to work well.

I did have a Silkie roo last year that was the only one that was being truly mean to the new ones (ie, running across the yard just to attack one) and he was removed permanently. Everyone else got along fine, you'll always see pecks or small squabbles when a new chicken or even a lower ranked gets too close to an older or higher ranked bird. Pecking order....

 

[lovinmychickens]

Thank you all so much for your responses, I was thinking the same as all of you said, but when I seen how bad the new ones were hurt, I didn't know what to do, so I seperated my old ones inside and new out, and of course it had to rain, but in the mean time, my husband and I went out and spent 128 dollars to build another coop for the new ones. On the way home we decided to make it bigger and divide it and the fencing area in half and they will all have two new homes. I am new to all of this, we moved to the country last July on top of a mountain, so I got 6 chickens last year and just love them and got 6 more this summer. I want more but don't want to go through this again. Thanks to all again!

 

[aran]

so far so good! It has been several hours and no fighting! There are 4 of the big girls in with the babies still...i made a new roost inside the coop for the big girls and closed the door up so no goats can get in there! ( we have 2 goats who like to sleep in the coop!) Hopefully it stays peaceful overnight then I can put the rest of the biguns including the rooster in there tomorrow. I will keep you all posted. And i agree this is really stressful!

 

[Gracefulspice]

I'm going through this myself right now. I have to older hens, one 11mo. and another approx 2yrs. and just brought home 5 pullets at 8weeks old. I started with the 8 weekers in a cage outside the coop for approx 5 hours for my older hens to meet them. I moved them to the coop for the night with my older girls, but keep the young in the cage. Next day I had to go to work. I wasn't going to be able to supervise so I left the younger in the cage in the coop with the older girls walking around. I came home and let the older girls out of the coop to free range and allowed the 8 weekers to roam the coop and run. I did this for approx 3 days. On the 3rd. night I allowed my 8 weekers to roost with out the cage. But I was sure to be up at the crack of dawn to place them back in the cage. I did that for 2 more days. On the 3rd day I let the 8 weekers out into the coop with the hens and kept watch. All went well. Some pecking and feather pulling, but the younger seem to stay on the oppisite side of the yard from the older girls. I still allow my older girls out when I'm home, but I can leave them together now for the day while I'm at work and no injuries. It's been a week and 3 days since I've had them and started to freerange them for 1hr before dusk. My one hen the 2 yr old was hanging out with them. Unfortunatlly my other hen went broody 2 days ago, so she really wants nothing to do with anything. I just hope someday they will all hang together and be good friends.

 

[lovinmychickens]

Wow, I wish I had that much confidence, I got sooooo scared right away and we went out and bought the materials and made another coop, this one is way bigger and we are going to divide it in half and put every one in it, but new ones get one side, old the other, and we will do the same for the fencing. I really like having the chickens, I just started last summer with my first 6 and just got my new ones yesterday, 8 weeks too, I want to get more next spring but this was so sad to watch and see, so I don't know, I think I might just stick with my 11.