I NEED ANSWERS!!! How much can I mix ages???

[PoultryQueen29]

I made a board about this before but I never really got a response to one question which is how much I can mix ages and not have a problem. I have a 12 week old EE, a 15 week old polish/silkie mutt, and an 11 week old black silkie (all pullets). I was wondering if I could put a 6 month old pullet in with them and have it work. I was thinking that if the pullet is bigger, my dominant pullet (EE) wouldnt be able to be nasty towards her. But I have also heard that if they dont have another chicken in their age group they feel lonely so I dont know what ages could work for them. I've only started with chickens this past summer so I really need help with this!

 

[goldies99]

they wont be lonely as long as they have chickens.....(the age doesnt matter).....they will all catch up in size......but you have to make sure the bigger ones dont peck the smalls ones to death .....thats the biggest problem putting different age chickens together....its not a fair fight if you have bigger chickens beating up the little guys!

 

[so lucky]

Most folks would suggest 30 days of quarentine before you add a new chicken, so after that time, maybe you could put the newbie in her own cage/pen so the others can see her for a few days before you mix them. And also wait till dark and they are on the roost before you actually leave them together. There are lots of good threads on this forum about adding chickens to an existing flock. Use the search function to find what you need.

 

[PoultryQueen29]

Quote:
Oh trust me my EE girl is already huge and my polish mutt is right behind her! I didnt expect them to grow that fast! They would protect my poor little runt of a silkie

Thanks for the reply! It helps a lot because I've been looking around and a lot of the chickens I look at are 6 months old.

 

[PoultryQueen29]

Quote:
Yeah thats what I did when I introduced my silkie