Integrating 15 baby chicks to 7 month old hens (7) and roosters (3)

[nothingincommon]

Looks like you guys were spot on .. looks exactly like a turkey vulture. Well done! Are you sure they don't kill chickens?

 

[nothingincommon]

I'll try introducing them after 2-3 weeks and make it so they can run for cover underneath something if the older ones get aggressive. Thanks so much for all the advice. Cheers!

 

[Ridgerunner]

As you can see we all do it differently, though I think you can see some common threads. I don’t see anybody on here that has tight cramped quarters. I strongly believe the more room you have the easier this is. You’ll also see that letting them get used to each other is pretty common.

I’m a little more cautious than some of these others. My brooder is in the coop. It has wire sides so the chicks grow up with the adults. I take some dirt from the run and start feeding that to them at day 2 or 3 in the brooder so they can start working on their immunities. I often open the brooder door at 5 weeks and let them make their way with the flock. Sometimes I move them to my grow-out coop instead but that’s for other reasons, not integration. I’ve never lost a chick to another adult doing this so I’m sure I’m too cautious, but if ain’t broke I tend to not fix it.

I like your concept of coop within a coop since they can see each other. When are the older chickens allowed to roam outside the coop, all day or is that restricted? It’s really rare for one of my older chickens to actually go out of her way to attack a chick, but if they are in tight spaces the chances of something like that increases. Some hens get offended if a chick invades her personal space but a lot don’t even react to that.

As mentioned, a safe haven is a pretty good idea. I don’t use one but can see real advantages if the chicks have a place they can go that the older ones can’t follow. Especially with tight space this could be really important.

Supposedly Turkey Vultures will not attack living animals but Black Vultures will. In Florida you can have both species, Turkey and Black. I’m not saying I totally believe a Turkey Vulture never will attack something alive, I just don’t trust absolutes with living animals. But if a vulture did attack one of your living chickens it was likely a Black.

 

[nothingincommon]

Here's what was left of my Plymouth