How long do you quarentine new chicks?

[holderh]

Hi i am new to this forum. We just got our first flock in april (11 hens) they are all healthy girls. We got them at tscn when they were just a couple weeks old. We want to get some more chicks from a friend. They got theirs about 2 weeks after we did at the same tsc. We are looking at getting 11 more. I am worried about adding new girls to the flock. I know we need to quarentine them but i dont know how long. We let our girls free range for about half a day, then they are put into a 16x32 pen where they can still get grass and bugs and then at night we lock them in the coop. I am just worried about adding new girls to the flock. I dont want mine to get sick or to be picked on, and i also really dont know how to do the quarentine. if we put the new ones in a pen and still let our girls free range will they not be able to come in contact with the new chicks through the pen? also our coop is a 4x8 can all 22 chicks stay in the same coop at night?

 

[donrae]

32 square feet is way too small for 22 birds. You need more coop space. Your run is really nice sized, though!

 

[Ole rooster]

What about the orginal question?

 

[donrae]

Okay. Quarantine means no contact. Disease can pass from bird to bird if they have any contact, like through a fence, etc. I believe 2 weeks is standard for quarantine. And there will be a fair amount of picking/pecking/fussing going on when you do put them all together, it's just the nature of the beast. There are many threads here on integration, you can browse them for different methods that have worked for folks.

 

[holderh]

Thank you all for your responses. After thinking about it i feel we only need to get 5 or 6 more chickens though. As i said before we only keep them shut up in the coop during the night. They free range on our property in which they have several acres to roam. Then after about 7 hours or so we put them in the run in which they access to the coop. If we only added 5 or 6 birds that would give them about 2 sq feet in the coop and like i said they are only shut up in it @ night. Would that still be too small? we hardly ever have snow where i live and it wouldnt be much if we have it so they wont be shut in during the winter. Thanks so much.

 

[clairabean]

If they are together at night, they are not really quarantined. Quarantined means far from eachother- like a totally seperate area. A sperate coop/run far from yoru healthy flock. Think of diseases. They can easily be swapped through a fence.

I rarely quarantine, but my flock is only 17 chickens. I can afford to lose them. (Maybe not emotionally, but....) I do not have an area to quarantine, though, so I take that chance with new birds.

 

[clairabean]

You can integrate the new birds in at night. When you add at night the sleeping hens wake up and don't really notice newbies. It is a silly chicken trait. "I can't remember if you were here when we went to bed, but you are here now when I wake up so..... ?? You have always been here....?" Silly chickens.

 

[holderh]

LOL i know what quarentine means....i meant after the quarentine. Would that many chickens be okay in the coop as far as square feet requirments go. Since they are only in the coop shut up @ night would 16-18 chickens be okay in a 4x8 coop. They free range about 7 hours in the day and then they go to a 16x32 pen and at night is the only time they are shut up together. (from about 9 pm-7 am) right now we only have 11 chickens but are wanting to add 5-7 more. That is a good idea about putting them in together at night LOL it is like they shut down mentally when they go to roost LOL. Thanks so much for the replys

 

[pidgey]

I have the same question! I have a small run next to the main run I made for an injured chick, if I double the fence so they can't contact each other through it would that be enough buffer to make the run into a quarantine area?

I'm also probably getting the chicks from the same person I got the injured bird from a few weeks ago and didn't even think about quarantine when I put her in the coop so would the adults already be exposed to whatever the new chicks would have?

 

[hoog]

mispost