Integrating new chickens to a solo chicken

[CSword]

Hello everyone!

i have a small question I hope for some help with. We have for the last few years had two Black Rock hens who arrived at us as a pair (sisters) and have been our only hens for that time. Last Friday I noticed one was a bit... off, on Sunday morning she sadly passed, leaving her sister by herself.

Since then I have thoroughly cleaned the coop and all of their feeding and drink accessories, there has been no sign of any change in behaviour with the remaining one but am now stuck with a dilemma. I do not wish to leave the remaining one alone, nor do I want to introduce new hens if I cannot be guaranteed that they will integrate well with our current hen.

So my question is this; can I safely introduce new hens (I was hoping for more than one) to our existing one and be sure that they will socialise well with one another? I have found someone close to us who have some of the same breed yet considerably younger at 22-26 weeks. Would this result in our hen becoming the dominant one? Would they socialise well given the age difference (ours must be around 3+ years by now)?

Thank you for any help anybody can offer here!

 

[J&Kfeatheredfowl]

I don’t see why not. Your hen would usually be at a disadvantage being alone, but she is older and will already be comfortable in her home. Do u have a separate area you could put the new hens in at first? They should get to know each other without contact, through a fence, then they should be introduced to each other, eventually being able to live with each other full time. And remember... fighting is normal, your older hen may pick on the new girls, but as long as there is a lot of blood and injuries, they should be fine.

 

[CSword]

That's excellent, thank you for the information.

We have a rather large area of the garden we have closed off that we used for them, so my plan was to temporarily fence off a smaller area for the new ones and to allow them to socialise through the wire without contact. So they'll all have space to wander, sleep and nest, but no chance of physical contact. then once everything seems OK I'd remove the temporary fence and allow them to be together.

So it's good to know things should be OK, I was worried about the age difference but if what you say is true it shouldn't be an issue. So thank you again for your help.

 

[Mrs. K]

I think of it as + & -.
Older is +
home territory is +
younger is -
2 birds -

so when the + = -, that is a pretty smooth, pretty quick integration. You certainly can separate them, but with in a week, I would let them all out into a big space, shortly before dark. Sit out there with them, tossing a little scratch, and encourage them all into the same coop.

I would expect some bluff with this introduction, if you did nothing but put them together, I would not expect a huge long drawn out ordeal. A lot depends on your current set up, if you have hide outs and a couple of feeders.

Do not be surprised if your original bird passes soon. In my experience, chickens often times go pass around 3 years of age. People do post on here about very long lived birds, but it is not uncommon for birds to die about this time period. I do not think anything was wrong with your original bird.

Mrs K

 

[J&Kfeatheredfowl]

I think of it as + & -.
Older is +
home territory is +
younger is -
2 birds -

so when the + = -, that is a pretty smooth, pretty quick integration. You certainly can separate them, but with in a week, I would let them all out into a big space, shortly before dark. Sit out there with them, tossing a little scratch, and encourage them all into the same coop.

I would expect some bluff with this introduction, if you did nothing but put them together, I would not expect a huge long drawn out ordeal. A lot depends on your current set up, if you have hide outs and a couple of feeders.

Do not be surprised if your original bird passes soon. In my experience, chickens often times go pass around 3 years of age. People do post on here about very long lived birds, but it is not uncommon for birds to die about this time period. I do not think anything was wrong with your original bird.

Mrs K[/QUOTE
Oh, I’ve always been told chickens usually live around 6-8 years

 

[Mrs. K]

There are people that report birds that old and older, but I think it is not realist to expect most birds to live that long. A lot depends on if they are hatchery birds, and the climate that you live in, I have never had a single bird get older than 4.5. Damn coon got her, but to be honest, I expected her to be passing at the time. She was acting very old.