Hello! Looking for a little advice on my situation.
I have a large, L-shaped chicken run (imagine a square and a rectangle) that has a door into the rectangle and a door that separates the two parts. About a year back I got several chicks. When they got too big for their little corral in the garage, I closed the door between the two halves and put the young ones in there. Unfortunately, one of the chicks grew up to be a rooster (my fault, I was low on money and so I bought chicks instead of pullets and rolled the dice with gender). Long story short, I now have one flock that consists of a leghorn rooster, four leghorn hens, and three delaware hens. They are all about 2 years old. My other little flock consists of a Ameraucana rooster, two Ameraucana hens, three Welsummer hens, and four delaware hens. The delawares in this group are my youngest at about 6 months old.
In order to get to the second flock (for collecting eggs, for filling up the food, etc), I have to pass through the section where the other flock is housed. This is inconvenient, and I would really love to integrate the two flocks to make management easier.
The "wall" between the two sections is mostly made of chicken wire (the outside has hardware cloth, but the internal wall didn't seem like that was necessary). The chickens see each other all of the time. I often put the two groups outside to free range together, and they seem to get along fine aside from the occasional confrontation between the two roosters (these have only gotten "serious" two times). But I am very much aware that outside they have a lot of space to spread out, for the little ones to hide from the big ones, etc.
I have read a lot about integrating new hens, but I haven't found anything about integrating flocks with two roosters. Is this a horrible idea? I would obviously rather continue to be inconvenienced than endanger my chickies. Their run is very spacious (well above the 10 square feet per chicken rule) and there are lots of levels (ladders, perches, boxes, corners, walkways, etc). Ultimately integrating the flock would leave me with 2 roosters and 16 hens, which I know is on the lower end of the acceptable rooster/hen ratio. I have two food stations (and could easily add one more) and four water stations (two per side).
Any advice is appreciated, whether it's telling me DO NOT DO IT!! or telling me how I might go about it. I am a teacher and I am on summer break, which means that I have time to do things like sit and supervise a situation for a long chunk of time.
I have a large, L-shaped chicken run (imagine a square and a rectangle) that has a door into the rectangle and a door that separates the two parts. About a year back I got several chicks. When they got too big for their little corral in the garage, I closed the door between the two halves and put the young ones in there. Unfortunately, one of the chicks grew up to be a rooster (my fault, I was low on money and so I bought chicks instead of pullets and rolled the dice with gender). Long story short, I now have one flock that consists of a leghorn rooster, four leghorn hens, and three delaware hens. They are all about 2 years old. My other little flock consists of a Ameraucana rooster, two Ameraucana hens, three Welsummer hens, and four delaware hens. The delawares in this group are my youngest at about 6 months old.
In order to get to the second flock (for collecting eggs, for filling up the food, etc), I have to pass through the section where the other flock is housed. This is inconvenient, and I would really love to integrate the two flocks to make management easier.
The "wall" between the two sections is mostly made of chicken wire (the outside has hardware cloth, but the internal wall didn't seem like that was necessary). The chickens see each other all of the time. I often put the two groups outside to free range together, and they seem to get along fine aside from the occasional confrontation between the two roosters (these have only gotten "serious" two times). But I am very much aware that outside they have a lot of space to spread out, for the little ones to hide from the big ones, etc.
I have read a lot about integrating new hens, but I haven't found anything about integrating flocks with two roosters. Is this a horrible idea? I would obviously rather continue to be inconvenienced than endanger my chickies. Their run is very spacious (well above the 10 square feet per chicken rule) and there are lots of levels (ladders, perches, boxes, corners, walkways, etc). Ultimately integrating the flock would leave me with 2 roosters and 16 hens, which I know is on the lower end of the acceptable rooster/hen ratio. I have two food stations (and could easily add one more) and four water stations (two per side).
Any advice is appreciated, whether it's telling me DO NOT DO IT!! or telling me how I might go about it. I am a teacher and I am on summer break, which means that I have time to do things like sit and supervise a situation for a long chunk of time.
