Integrating young chickens with the flock

[bigz1983]

Hey everyone I have 10 young buff orpington chickens 10 weeks old.

Right now they are in my A-frame chicken run that's covered with a tarp.
They can see the adults in the coop through a barrier/divider I built.
The adult chickens are 5 ISA Brown hens, 3 barred rock hens, 1 barred rock rooster and a speckled sussex hen.
The ISA Brown's are really mean to other chickens and the barred rocks are as#$oles too. The speckled sussex hen is nice to other chickens.

Are all barred rocks and ISA Brown's slow to take new flock mates?
Because of the breeds the buff orpington chickens need to integrate with what age would be best to take the divider down?

 

[chickengirl778]

It would be best to do it permanently when they're about the same size, but maybe they could free range together to know each other a little bit.

 

[snow5164]

I don’t agree , I say 8-10 weeks old is better. Waiting till full grown is not reasonable , I like the old ones to learn to be nice to the young . Just make sure you have more young ones then old.good luck

 

[bigz1983]

I don’t agree , I say 8-10 weeks old is better. Waiting till full grown is not reasonable , I like the old ones to learn to be nice to the young . Just make sure you have more young ones then old.good luck

My buff orpingtons are 20 weeks old now and I started intergrating them at 16 weeks old. It has been some work but there all starting to get along.

 

[aart]

I say 8-10 weeks old is better.

And 4-6 weeks old is even better!

 

[snow5164]

Is it not all trial and error ? No birds are the same no runs and coops are the same and no two people are the same .

Do what works for you and your hens then tell us about it

 

[bigz1983]

Update: My young buff orpingtons are doing good with the integration. The 3 oldest ISA Brown hens don't like them but I have put out 3 different locations for food/water to minimize fighting.