how to introduced new chicks to my chicks?

[mommyoftwo]

I have 5 11 to 12 week old chicks and two ducks (triing to get rid of) in a small coop. I'm bukiding a larger coop behind it 4 1/2 ft by 12ish ft long. I want to add 6 more chicks to it. I found someone that has 11 week old ee for 5.50 each and want them and 12 week old roo for 8.00. How do I mix them together with out much fights and blood shed. The roo has been keep away from the ee chicks and been with other roos. Will I have a problem with him? Also is 11 hens going to be to much for one roo?

 

[nothingbutbirds]

Before you add the other chicks with yours I find that it is best to keep them seperated from the others to make sure your chicks arent exposed to something from the new ones. If you don't have ghe room to seperate completely seperate them I always put mine in a pen next to or inside their pen depending on what sort of coop they are in to allow one of the two. Since the chicks are so young fighting shoulc not be to much of an issue. How many hems a rooster can cover all depends on the size and how actice your rooster is. Most large fowl roosters can probaly cover 7-10 hens. A bantam rooster usauly can cover 10-15. These are roughly my own estimates and of course it varies from rooster to rooster. A young cockerel can cover more hens than a old rooster as well so since yours will be young he may be abke to cover more. Hope I helped.

 

[OreoPlymothRock]

as long as they are about the same size, they should be just fine together, we got 2 RIRs and had them for 2 weeks, then we got 4 Cinnamon queens. They were about the same size and when we joined them, they were perfectly fine together. Now they are big and integrated into the flock. nothingbutbirds is right about the disease situation. One flock of chicks can give diseases to the other flock of chicks. I didn't care about it because I have a remedy that works for every disease, and that helps you lose weight. Nothingbutbirds, you need to check on your spelling, I'm not trying to be mean but, abke,shoulc, ghe, hems, usauly, are not words lol. And the rooster question, roosters. 11 hens are not too much, for some roosters, I know that the amount is 15 to 20, or 10 to 15. Oh, mommyoftwo, can you explain it more understandable?

 

[nothingbutbirds]

as long as they are about the same size, they should be just fine together, we got 2 RIRs and had them for 2 weeks, then we got 4 Cinnamon queens. They were about the same size and when we joined them, they were perfectly fine together. Now they are big and integrated into the flock. nothingbutbirds is right about the disease situation. One flock of chicks can give diseases to the other flock of chicks. I didn't care about it because I have a remedy that works for every disease, and that helps you lose weight. Nothingbutbirds, you need to check on your spelling, I'm not trying to be mean but, abke,shoulc, ghe, hems, usauly, are not words lol. And the rooster question, roosters. 11 hens are not too much, for some roosters, I know that the amount is 15 to 20, or 10 to 15. Oh, mommyoftwo, can you explain it more understandable?

sorry about my spelling my tablets touch pad has this thing that if you slide your finger across the screen on accident it for some reason changes the spelling or changes letters around. The rooster thing was just from my experience but then again it just depends on the rooster.

 

[mommyoftwo]

The new chicks that I'm getting are from a research school. The young rooster is from a farm down the street. I don't have room go separate them. I only have a small yard and building my coop this weekend.

 

[KilnChick]

So glad this was on here! I have 2 Roos and 8 ladies approximately 18-20 wks old. I recently acquired an older hen ( not sure of age but she's about the same size as most of mine). The first day Penny was aggressive toward my girls, and I deprecated her from the rest. The second day, my girls were aggressive towards Penny, but after an hr or so they seem to take turns pecking at each other and on occasion it looked like there was going to be a throw down! I deprecated them again for the rest of the day. How long will the adjustment take and could the fights become deadly? Penny has already been laying for some time with her previous owners. Will they ever adjust and get along together??

 

[mommyoftwo]

My chicks that I have now are about 12/13 weeks old. They were hatched around April 5. The new chicks are 11 1/2 weeks old, they were hatched April 15. I not thinking their is going to be much difference in size since their less then 2 weeks apart. I didn't get my coop finished this weekend, I got most of the walls up, but not the window nor the roof. I have the temp coop up, but it small. I was hoping only to have to use this week and tear it down this weekend, but now it needs to stay up until next weekend.

 

[Ridgerunner]

At the age you have, you should only have two things to consider about integration. At that age and only having one cockerel you don’t have to worry about roosters fighting for flock dominance.

Chickens can be territorial and can recognize which chickens belong in their flock. It does not happen all the time but it happens often enough to be a concern, but it is possible they will try to run off chickens not in their flock. I wouldn’t overly worry about this one, but it really can help if you can house them side by side for a week or so just so they get used to the other chickens. At the age yours are, that’s probably not a huge concern.

The other thing is the pecking order. Each chicken has to learn its place in the social order of the flock. Settling the pecking order is normally settled by pecking or just general intimidation. They start settling this practically from hatch so chickens raised together are often not seen as working this out.

What normally happens when two chickens that have not settled the pecking order invade each other’s personal space, one pecks the other. If the one being pecked runs away, they’ve worked it out. If it does not run away, they may scrimmage to settle it, flaring necks and jumping at each other, trying to claw or peck. This can get serious but almost always one quickly decides they are not winning and runs away. There may be some chasing involved to drive the victory home, but as long as one admits defeat and runs away, things are fine.

It’s important in this that the loser has enough room to run away. If the loser cannot run away the other chicken does not realize it has won and keeps attacking. I think the biggest thing you can do to reduce the amount and violence of fighting is to give them as much room as you can.

When you move chickens to a new location you can also trigger a reestablishment of the pecking order, even if they grew up together. This is usually not bad at all and quickly resolved, but sometimes you can see it happen. It would be nice if you could work it out where you add the new ones when you relocate them so they are not territorial and things are kind of shaken up anyway. They are less likely to single out one or two to pick on. But that’s a nice to have, not a requirement. Most of us can’t do it that way anyway.

Your single cockerel may present a challenge. He is right on the verge of puberty and is likely to be a bit bigger than the rest, especially if they are the same breed. It’s possible by him being the only one the others will pick on him. It’s also possible his hormones are starting to kick in and he’ll want to take over flock dominance. It’s possible he will integrate so smoothly you will wonder what all the concern was about. I’d put him in the same time as the other new ones if you can and see what happens.

I’ve never been one to worry about the size of the chickens. In my opinion, it’s more about the size of the fight in the chicken than the size of the chicken in the fight. A more mature chicken will always outrank an immature chicken regardless of size. Again, at that age it’s very possible that they will integrate extremely well and you’ll see practically no violence, but don’t be surprised if the younger sort of form a separate flock and don’t hang out with the older ones. The older ones might peck the younger ones if they invade their personal space so the younger les mature ones just avoid the older ones. It’s not a big deal. They will merge when they all mature.

Because of this though, I think it is a good idea to provide separate feeding and watering stations so the younger or the lone cockerel can eat and drink without having to challenge the others. Occasionally part of the intimidation of setting up the pecking order is that the older ones may keep the younger away from food and water.

Something that will soon happen to yours is that they will go through puberty. That cockerel will establish his dominance over the flock. Even if they were the exact same age, he would probably mature a little earlier than the hens. Often people seeing this process for the first time get really upset with the cockerel and kill him for being a brute, when what he is doing is perfectly natural and not harmful. His hormones will really flare up and the pullets will still be totally immature. His hormones are telling him one thing and the pullets don’t have the same urges yet. That can cause conflict.

But there is another part of that other than just pure sex. The mating ritual is about dominance. The one on the bottom is being dominated by the one on top, whether willingly or by force. The pullets are not just resisting his sexual urges, they are resisting his dominance of them. If you have a mature dominant rooster in the flock he will often intervene and help keep peace in his flock and mature hens will often slap a young cocky cockerel around to teach him how to treat a lady, but in your flock you are not going to have those influences. They are going to have to go by pure instinct. It might get rough but as long as no blood is drawn, they will get through it. Things will really settle down when the pullets mature enough to start laying and accept their place in the flock.

I know this is long and rambling. Hopefully you will get something useful out of it. People go through this all the time. It almost always works out if they allow it to. It can get kind of rough at times or the whole thing may go real smooth. The age of yours gives you a reasonable chance for the smooth part. I wish you luck.

 

[wsmith]

Well said Ridgerunner!

 

[wsmith]

Everyone's setup is different, but here's what I did to help with integration. I built a "creep gate" which goes from one of the growout pens into the main flock area. This allows the smaller juveniles to go in and out, and the larger birds can't get in. I built it with the dowels at 5" center spacing, but It should have been 4". Much of a hen's width is fluff, which compresses. It all worked out fine, and the turkeys were the problem, not the hens and rooster. The gate can be covered/closed when not in use. We let the juveniles be in the pen for a couple of weeks before opening up the gate.