integrating 2 month old pullets with existing flock

[chickers]

I have two groups of chickens. The existing flock consists of 5 chickens: a light Brahma hen, a Silkie hen, a Polish hen and 4 month old Splash Laced Red Wyandotte pullet and cockerel. The Brahma is the dominant chicken since the cockerel is still young. The second group consists of 6 two-month old pullets. Right now, they are all housed next to each other so they can see each other all the time.

Normally, I would wait until the pullets were 3-4 months old to integrate them with the rest of the flock. However, we are currently building a new bigger chicken coop (6x8 shed) and a thousand square foot run. The new setup should be done sometime next week. Would it be a good idea to just put all the chickens in the new setup together? That way the older chickens wouldn't already consider it all their territory. Another consideration is that my Brahma is a wonderful head hen. She enforces the pecking order on new birds but isn't mean or a bully. I don't know what the flock dynamics will be once the cockerel is older.

If the consensus is to integrate the two groups next week, what do I do about feed? The pullets are still on starter and the hens are on layer. I know that starter doesn't have enough calcium for laying hens and that layer has too much for pullets.

 

[miamor]

Hmmm. I have a similar question but my older girls are still on grower. I've got 2, 11 week old pullets in my living room! I'm so so ready to get them out of my house!

Good Luck!

Linette

 

[bantamofopera]

From what I've read, it's fine to have the layers on grower feed as long as you give them some calcium in a separate feed, free choice (the pullets won't be interested in it). If they've been able to see each other all along and it's a big amount of space, I'd think they will be fine to combine. Just be sure to keep an eye on them the first few hours/day and see what happens. Maybe put some obstacles/places to hide so the littles can get out of the way. We just put 26 8-week-old pullets (we're pretty sure they are all girls at this point, lucky us!) in with our remaining 9-year-old hen after letting them free-range in our yard together for a couple of hours a day for two weeks, and they were fine. She pecked a couple of upstarts who got in her face but nothing serious at all. In fact I went out tonight and all the babies were IN and SLEEPING ON ROOSTS. She taught them what to do! Makes life much easier.

 

[chickers]

Thanks for your responses. I'm leaning towards doing the integration when the new coop and run are done next week.