GraceLand
Hatching
- Feb 20, 2015
- 1
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- 7
Hello, last October a teenage chicken flew into our backyard and has adopted us as her family. We now have a chicken coop. although she lays eggs in the coop she sleeps up in our tree. Her name is Emily and we love her as do our cats and dogs. Five weeks ago we bought a Buff Orpington and a Plymoth Bard Rock. I have been putting them outside in the coop during the warm day but I see Emily is not happy. She is pecking at them through the wire. How do I introduce them so they get along?
and Welcome To BYC! It is best to wait until the younger chickens are about the same size as your older one, and then a long period of seeing but no touching through wire seem to work best, ie dividing the coop into two sections or keeping the new/younger ones in a cage inside the coup for a couple of weeks to a month at least. The chickens will get to know each other and sort of work out a pecking order before actually coming in contact with each other. Letting them free range together is a good idea and should help... It will take a couple of weeks to get the pecking order sorted out. There is a nice article in the Learning Center on integrating flocks you might like to check out, the part about actually combining them is after the quarantine section 
