How easy is it to mix day old chicks with week old chicks?

[SpeckledPullet]

I have some day old chicks here that I hatched, but Tractor Supply will have chicks available in another week or so. How easily can I mix day old TSC chicks with week old chicks? Will the older chicks peck the younger chicks overly much?

 

[Cindiloohoo]

I just did it with staggered hatch Delaware chicks. I am pleased with the result. I had no issue at all.

 

[SpeckledPullet]

Great!! It is actually Delewares I am wanting to mix in, so it's funny you mentioned that.

I have Wynadottes and a Cochin right now and am hoping they will stay "polite" when I add some Delewares. Perhaps if I add enough of the new chicks, the older chicks won't peck as much.

How many new chicks did you add to your older chicks?

 

[lemurchaser]

That should be fine. Especially since the TSC chicks will be a few days old. I've had it work fine and I've had it fail miserably. Generally it seems to work better if there are more younger chicks than older chicks. You might want to pull out the bigger ones for an hour or so, let the younger once get the lay of the brooder and chill from their stressful day, and then add in the older ones.

 

[Cindiloohoo]

I added 12 to my 3 older chicks. I have also added 15 to my 1 older chick last time. Every other hatch has been low due to power outages!!

Cool that you have some little Dellie's

 

[fiddleblue]

I did the same and had no problem at all. I had 4 chicks 1 week old and then brought in 2 day olds. No problem.

 

[felidaet]

Last year I picked up chicks on several different dates over a 3 week period from feed stores. For the first two weeks i just mixed them all together in the brooder with no problems. On the third week I kept the young ones separated for a couple of days before mixing them together in the brooder. Then I watched them closely after I let them in together. But who does not watch their new little chicks closely

. I did not have any problems.

Hopefully I will be able to get all my chicks this year over a 2 week period. I know that I will be getting about half of them within a day or two of each other. I don't know exactly when the other half will be available. They are coming from a local breeder and it depends upon when they are hatched. It will most likely depend upon when the rarest breed (3 BLRW

) are ready.

 

[TaylorC]

We got our first six a couple of weeks ago, then about five days later got two more, one of them noticeably younger. We were concerned at first, and watched a lot. She seems to have been taken under wing by a couple of the bigger ones, and doing fine aside from never getting any sleep around the others - who seem to think they're teenagers at this point.

 

[Tala]

I mixed some that had about a 2 week age difference. They were 1 week olds and 3 week olds, so each group was bonded to the rest of the group. The younger ones were being bullied by the other group (whole group, not one particular offender) so I took the 4 babies out and put them in a dog crate with ONE of the older pullets for 3 days. She bonded to them a little bit so they had a buddy on the "other side" when I re-mixed them. Overall it wasn't bad.

 

[drumstick diva]

shouldn't you quarantine any new chicks you add? Who knows what they caught at the feed store ( not exactly the epitome of chick caretakers).