My pullets generally are able to force their way into the pecking order about the time they start to lay. Until then the older hens are higher in the pecking order. Until my pullets mature enough to force their way in, they will not share the main roosts. The time my chickens are most brutal to each other is when they are going to bed. My younger ones find a safer place to sleep than the main roosts. I put in a juvenile roost for these occasions. It’s lower than the main roosts, higher than the nests, and horizontally separated from the main roosts. This gives my younger chicks a safe place to roost that is not my nests. Your main coop is kind of small so I don’t know how much flexibility you have in this. (Thanks for the photos, they help)
I raise my chicks with the flock. The brooder is in the coop so they grow up together. Often I move them to a grow-out coop when I take them out of the brooder, but that grow-out coop and its run is next to the main run so they are still “with” the flock. After they have learned to sleep in the grow-out coop I let them run with the main flock during the day but they return to their safe place to sleep at night.
When I decide to move them into the main coop to sleep, anywhere after 12 weeks of age depending on what else is going on, I physically lock them in the main coop after dark and lock up the grow-out coop so they cannot get back in there. My main coop is a big walk-in so I just put them on the floor. The next morning I’m down there around daylight to see how it is going and open the pop door. I keep doing that until I’m comfortable there will not be a massacre when they wake up. I’ve never seen any serious problems in my big walk-in coop so that’s usually just once or twice. I still consider it a prudent precaution because with chicken behaviors you just never know. Different chickens have different personalities.
Most times they go to bed in the main coop after that but sometimes some or all go back to the grow-out coop area and try to sleep there. After dark when they are easy to catch I move them to the main coop. It usually doesn’t take long for them to make that switch.
Yours have been together during the day so yes they are integrated. They still have pecking order differences because of maturity levels. In that small coop I don’t know how this will work out, you can but try. I think once your pullets start to lay they will probably use the nests even if they are still sleeping outside, mine tend to let the older hens show them where to lay. If the move doesn’t work out I would probably let them continue sleeping outside until they start laying and mature into adults. At that time with your set-up they will probably move themselves inside.
Good luck!
