Didn't see another recent-ish thread on this in the chick area, so I thought I'd start one for people who are mixing chicks. I've heard a few excellent different ways to introduce chicks that are about a week apart in age, and I thought I'd put my way up here:
We got our first set of chicks (SLW's and BlackLORPS) at a week of age from our local Southern States and set them up in their brooder. We were supposed to be able to get the next set the following week to the day, but everyone's shipments in the area got back ordered on what we wanted. Instead, after a lot of hunting we found an excellent place (360 Hardware in Manquin) that had EE's, LtB's, and BO's like we wanted (they people there are excellent, to the point of ordering sexed chicks and explaining pasty butt and everything else to their customers with every bunch of chicks that got sold). By this time, the chicks were now about to be almost 2 weeks apart (which means the first batch was double the new batch's size, and had a pecking order already setting in).
So, we set up this:
Separate brooders with a fence in between so that they could see, hear, and socialize on opposite sides of the fence (the SLW's and LORPS in the back by then hopped out of their kiddie pool all the time, so they would do so to hang out to hang out in their "yard" by the fence). We let this go on for about two days and watched everybody's behavior (aka we waited for the older chickies to start calling to the babies with the "where are you/come back" call).
Once everyone was calling the babies, we let the two older chicks that looked like they had fallen into the top and bottom of the pecking order (in pic is "Maleficent", our then and still current flock queen) into the baby's brooder one at a time. This way it was they instead of the little guys being slightly overwhelmed (as the bigger girls had less of a chance of being hurt). This was all supervised, and only lasted a couple of minutes. Our Queen actually checked out the place and then set to calling her flock at the fence, so we set her back into the older brooder.
Matilda however (our sweetie bottom rung LORP) did what we expected: she tried to find chicks to lord over to probably make up for being the lowest rank in her own flock. What she got instead was a teeny tin puffball of a BO chest-butting her to the ground in one try, and she in turn made it clear she wasn't going to try that again. They finished out with the BO preening her, and then Matilda was put back with her flock.
After this point, we gave them a few more days until the older girls were always at the fence calling the babies. Then we took out the fence, and it went off without a hitch. The first night Maleficent and Matilda slept in their older brooder by choice (Matilda doesn't leave Maleficent) and Matilda cried for the flock to come back for a bit (as they were all sleeping in a happy bunch four feet away), but by the next night everyone was sleeping together. We haven't had a single problem yet
We got our first set of chicks (SLW's and BlackLORPS) at a week of age from our local Southern States and set them up in their brooder. We were supposed to be able to get the next set the following week to the day, but everyone's shipments in the area got back ordered on what we wanted. Instead, after a lot of hunting we found an excellent place (360 Hardware in Manquin) that had EE's, LtB's, and BO's like we wanted (they people there are excellent, to the point of ordering sexed chicks and explaining pasty butt and everything else to their customers with every bunch of chicks that got sold). By this time, the chicks were now about to be almost 2 weeks apart (which means the first batch was double the new batch's size, and had a pecking order already setting in).
So, we set up this:
Separate brooders with a fence in between so that they could see, hear, and socialize on opposite sides of the fence (the SLW's and LORPS in the back by then hopped out of their kiddie pool all the time, so they would do so to hang out to hang out in their "yard" by the fence). We let this go on for about two days and watched everybody's behavior (aka we waited for the older chickies to start calling to the babies with the "where are you/come back" call).
Once everyone was calling the babies, we let the two older chicks that looked like they had fallen into the top and bottom of the pecking order (in pic is "Maleficent", our then and still current flock queen) into the baby's brooder one at a time. This way it was they instead of the little guys being slightly overwhelmed (as the bigger girls had less of a chance of being hurt). This was all supervised, and only lasted a couple of minutes. Our Queen actually checked out the place and then set to calling her flock at the fence, so we set her back into the older brooder.
Matilda however (our sweetie bottom rung LORP) did what we expected: she tried to find chicks to lord over to probably make up for being the lowest rank in her own flock. What she got instead was a teeny tin puffball of a BO chest-butting her to the ground in one try, and she in turn made it clear she wasn't going to try that again. They finished out with the BO preening her, and then Matilda was put back with her flock.
After this point, we gave them a few more days until the older girls were always at the fence calling the babies. Then we took out the fence, and it went off without a hitch. The first night Maleficent and Matilda slept in their older brooder by choice (Matilda doesn't leave Maleficent) and Matilda cried for the flock to come back for a bit (as they were all sleeping in a happy bunch four feet away), but by the next night everyone was sleeping together. We haven't had a single problem yet
