amity80
In the Brooder
- Jul 21, 2023
- 7
- 12
- 11
This is not my first time integrating flocks but this integration is especially challenging:
I started with 4 hens and a year later successfully integrated 4 more hens. (even match, they met each other through wire walls, free ranged together and had plenty of food spots) Two years later, my sister had six hens and was able to integrate 4 with no issues either. So now my flock is 4 yrs old and hers is one. This March my coop was assailed by a bobcat, and only two hens survived (one from each batch). We rebuilt from the bottom up, and the coop is now significantly better and more secure (and huge with an expanded run so there is less need for free ranging and risking predation for two girls who are getting on in years, laying less but BELOVED by my family). This spring we got 4 bantams which we were planning to integrate (12 wks old at the moment), but my sister just called and racoons have been getting into her flock, and she's lost 4 and is down to 6 herself (3 from her first flock and 3 from the ones she added) and doesn't have the time or patience to rebuild, but doesn't want the rest of her flock to become racoon food, so has offered to either give me her 6 girls that are a year old in their prime as layers, or she's going to cull them herself.
So I have two older girls currently living in a huge coop and run and the potential need to integrate 4 bantams (which I was going to add to the coop in a separated section of the run for a few weeks to introduce before integrating when they are a little older) but now also a potential flock of 6 (she claims they are fairly docile 3 are Raya's and 3 are a Brama/Something mix, which are breeds I've never had. My original girls were a complete mix, a leghorn, black jersey giant, white laced Wyandotte, Rhode Island red, cream legbar etc...).
How do I do this? Do I do this? Even if I make a completely separate space for the bantams, Integrating the two established girls with a flock of 6? I know the matches should be pretty even, and most of the posts I read here talk about adding a few to a larger flock not the other way around.
Do I do one then the other, do I pass on my sister's flock? I know about lots of food stations meeting through wire first, free ranging and obstacles to break line of sight. I'm just not sure about three flocks coming together and the disparity in number and size (the bantams)
Any ideas or first hand experiential knowledge would be nice. (to add another wrench I think two of the bantams are presenting as cockerels)
I started with 4 hens and a year later successfully integrated 4 more hens. (even match, they met each other through wire walls, free ranged together and had plenty of food spots) Two years later, my sister had six hens and was able to integrate 4 with no issues either. So now my flock is 4 yrs old and hers is one. This March my coop was assailed by a bobcat, and only two hens survived (one from each batch). We rebuilt from the bottom up, and the coop is now significantly better and more secure (and huge with an expanded run so there is less need for free ranging and risking predation for two girls who are getting on in years, laying less but BELOVED by my family). This spring we got 4 bantams which we were planning to integrate (12 wks old at the moment), but my sister just called and racoons have been getting into her flock, and she's lost 4 and is down to 6 herself (3 from her first flock and 3 from the ones she added) and doesn't have the time or patience to rebuild, but doesn't want the rest of her flock to become racoon food, so has offered to either give me her 6 girls that are a year old in their prime as layers, or she's going to cull them herself.
So I have two older girls currently living in a huge coop and run and the potential need to integrate 4 bantams (which I was going to add to the coop in a separated section of the run for a few weeks to introduce before integrating when they are a little older) but now also a potential flock of 6 (she claims they are fairly docile 3 are Raya's and 3 are a Brama/Something mix, which are breeds I've never had. My original girls were a complete mix, a leghorn, black jersey giant, white laced Wyandotte, Rhode Island red, cream legbar etc...).
How do I do this? Do I do this? Even if I make a completely separate space for the bantams, Integrating the two established girls with a flock of 6? I know the matches should be pretty even, and most of the posts I read here talk about adding a few to a larger flock not the other way around.
Do I do one then the other, do I pass on my sister's flock? I know about lots of food stations meeting through wire first, free ranging and obstacles to break line of sight. I'm just not sure about three flocks coming together and the disparity in number and size (the bantams)
Any ideas or first hand experiential knowledge would be nice. (to add another wrench I think two of the bantams are presenting as cockerels)
