interducing new chicks

[rosepetra]

Hi everyone,

I have 10 baby chicks, that I need to interduce to my 2 four year olds. My babies are about 2 months old, fully featherd. When should I put them in with the adults? :/

 

[Judy]

It's safest to wait til they ar adult size, but have them side by side for at least a few weeks til then. See hte later parts of this article

https://www.backyardchickens.com/t/781405/introducing-new-birds-to-flock/0_20

 

[rosepetra]

Thank you very much! That was most helpful.

 

[aoxa]

You only have two older hens? I don't think a long period of seeing but not touching is necessary for your situation. Maybe if you have highly aggressive hens and less chicks than your older flock...

I have introduced so many chicks I've lost count.

Best way I have found is to have an area that the littles can get, that the big ones cannot. The more room you have for everyone, the better. If you have a small run with no places for the babies to get away from the older ones, that is not a scenario I am used to. I free range, and always have. I never started free ranging any later than 6 weeks, but others often wait longer due to high predation. I am lucky.. we have really low predation, and 3 dogs who keep whatever predators we do have out of the yard.

So what I usually did was fence off an area where only the silkies and the chicks could get in and out, but the big ones could not follow.




you can see the areas I cut out for the babies to escape here.

 

[rosepetra]

I did think about just two adult hens. I thought since I would be introducing more new ones to old ones that I would have less of a problem. My adult chicks are Silver laced Wyndots, not to aggressive. Thank you for your knowledge I really appreciate it. Also I loved the pix.