I'm new! Question about silkies and barred rocks

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Beka123

Beka123

In the Brooder
7 Years
Jan 31, 2012
92
2
41
Hey everyone! I'm new to chicken keeping, like 2 weeks new. We got my daughter some silkies (6 of them!) for her birthday last week. All I had read about them was that the were sweet, docile, and the best "pet" and "mother" chicken around so I decided thes were our chickens. Plus they're just so cute! but after researching them much more I have found they are not the best egg layers, which is what I wanted out of the deal... So I got 3 barred rocks yesterday (pullets, but due to start laying any day we were told.)

This morning we introduced them and they just seem so much larger than the silkies, and our little silkie roo has just been fighting and fighting them all morning, one BR especially seems to want herself to be dominant over the rooster! And when they're not fighting, he will crow, and the BR hen will respond with what I can only describe as a chicken laugh!

So now I'm second guessing my decision to house them together, we have them in a 16x16' area in hog panels, which was keeping the 6 silkies just fine but those 3 huge barred rocks just seem to take up so much space and they're so tall! And even after clipping their wings, one of the BR's was able to hop/fly up on top of the coop I made for the silkies! It's about 3' tall, and just barely shorter than the hog panels... So I guess I'm off to the store to get some chicken wire to go the rest of the way up the t posts... Any diff suggestions for the fencing? And should I keep the silkies and BR's together or separate them? Thanks so much!
 
First of all, WELCOME!

Whenever you introduce two different flocks to eachother, there will be some pecking -especially with the roosters.

I have a Silkie rooster free ranging with all my other roosters and they are doing fine; they did have to establish who is boss in the beginning.

Whenever I add a new rooster, the Silkie rooster is always the first to go after him. Go figure!

Anyway, if you want them all to be housed together, then they will have to establish their pecking order.

Watch the flock to make sure no one is getting pecked on too bad (bloody feathers).

They should be fine after about a week.

Good luck!

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Hi and welcome to BYC from nothern Michigan
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I always pen new birds inside the coop in a separate caged enclosure so that everyone can get to know each other for about a week before turning them loose together (this is done at night by putting the new birds on the perch in the dark).
 
Thank you everyone for the welcomes and quick response! Glad to know I can keep them together. I was kind of worrying myself about space issues and size issues and different temperament issues. Funny, I just went out to check on them bc I couldn't see anyone in the pen, they were ALL 9 in the coop and we even got our first suprise egg! The guy we got the BR's from said he'd been finding 3-4 eggs a day in their pen but he had about 15 girls in there, I wasn't expecting to get one that was already laying! It was kind of exciting lol. It seemed like everyone was getting along in the coop though. I know they have to establish their pecking order and I keep telling myself that, but still, it just looks so mean and painful! One of the BR's even was laying down at one point, head and everything, after our rooster had picked on her. I figured it was a show of deference maybe? Bc then he left her alone and she got up and started eating...
 
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