How do you integrate chicks and chickens?

[BarredBuff]

How can I peacefully integrate chicks and chickens?
BTW: I have an 8 by 8 coop which will soon be an 8 by 12, my flock of 17 free ranges all day everyday.

 

[Sir Birdaholic]

Mine freerange full time. Let the young ones out with the rest while they are freeranging. That gives the little ones a chance to escape any brutalities. It doesn't take very long for everyone to let the young ones know the pecking order. When you let them loose, feed them. It gets their mind off of the little ones. I wait until 12 weeks old to put the 2 ages together.

 

[Sesame]

I'm not that experienced but I had to move mine to the coop a couple of weeks ago and they were 4 or 5 weeks old. They did totally fine. I put them in at night. I saw the hens chase them a bit and a peck here or there but nothing serious. There were only 3 hens though and 8 chicks. I don't know if that makes any difference but we didn't have any problems at all.

 

[Willjg]

Hey there,

I've heard of doing this a couple of different ways...

First, its usually best to wait until the birds are closer to the same size before you integrate them...I usually wait til my youngsters are about 3 months old, because by then they are a good size to let run around with the older birds.
Second, try integrating them at night, when you lock them up for the night....They're usually calmer then and more focused on finding a resting place for the night and less likely to pick on any newbies....Then when they wake up together in the morning they're more fascinated with the new ones than likely to get hostile with new 'invaders.'

Hope this helps.
Take Care,
Bill.

 

[Backyard_Chicken_rancher]

My coop and run are big enough that I have a grow out pen inside the coop and they have their own area in the run, so I keep mine in there until the big ones get used to them being around then I open the gate at night and in then in the morning they just wonder on out and nobody is any wiser to it.

 

[BarredBuff]

Thanks everyone!