Introducing 5 week old chicks to 13 week old chicks + coop training

jewelg

Crowing
15 Years
Apr 2, 2009
141
310
336
Los Angeles, CA
Hi, Peeps!

We got our chicks at the same time, but from two different places. Our younger chicks (now 5 weeks) are a mixed group from a local feed store, and our two older silkies (13 weeks old) are from a friend who's also a new chicken owner. When we got the silkies, they were 10 weeks old and already used to putting themselves into the coop at night. Over the last week, we've been putting them all in a shared enclosure outside during the day with the two groups separated by a barrier. They had their first "in person" introduction yesterday with two chicks at a time, and we brought everyone together today to share some cheese and strawberries. It's gone pretty well. I've also put the chicks into the coop to explore it yesterday and today while the silkies were free-ranging, and I've had them all in the run section of the coop together with a barrier that the chicks could cross, but the silkies could not. It was going great until...

This evening... I left the chicks in the run section of the coop thinking maaaaaaaybeeeeee the would follow the silkies up the ramp and into the coop. Instead, they piled into the corner of the run closest to the house and cheeped their little hearts out. So, I brought them back in to their indoor pen. I would love to get everyone into the coop sooner rather than later. While I don't want to rush it, I've also been reading that it's easier to integrate birds when younger. In LA, it's hot right now. The chicks are getting nicely feathered at this point, and it's been in the 70's at night, so I'm not concerned about them being cold. I am concerned about how we get them ready to roost with the silkies.

The silkies seem happy cuddled up in the pine shavings on the coop floor, and our younger chicks have been comfortable roosting in the indoor pen, but the chicks seem to be up and down through out the night and don't go to bed with the sun like the silkies do. They're pretty chirpy in the evenings - it's 10:15pm now and they've just gotten quiet. And the new chicks are still smaller than the silkies, but better fliers. I'd love to hear suggestions from more experienced chicken owners regarding what our next steps should be... Do we stick with the barrier in the run for a while longer? Do we bring the silkies inside for a night and "sleep train" the younger chicks in the coop without the silkies around? Am I trying to integrate the newer chicks too early based on age/size?

Also, I do know the coop we have will ultimately be too small. We're finishing our big run this weekend, so the run I'm talking about is the section under the coop and around the ramp. We'll be building onto our set up as the new chicks get bigger - which is happening fast! OMG, they grow quick!
 

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Could you please post pics of your actual set up....that looks like a stock photo?
Seeing in side the coop would help too.
Is your run predator proof?
If so you could put a shelter in run section for chicks so they can live there 24/7?
 
Thanks, Aart- this is our actual set up right now. The two silkies live in the coop. The coop is predator-proofed with a 2 ft hardware cloth skirt. The chicks stay in the chicken scooter (mini tractor) when outside (chick scooter is not predator-proofed for digging predators bc it’s mobile and only for daytime). When The chicks are inside, they are in the dog kennel. The scooter can be moved, so I’ve also had it under our orange tree, with an area around it blocked off with boxes so the silkies can be out of the coop but still in the same area (see/hear/not touch the chicks). The playground dome in the background is going to be our run that we’re lining with hardware cloth and getting set up this weekend- we’ll have a chicken tunnel running between the coop and the dome. The last two days, I’ve used the lid of the first brooder we made (smaller than the kennel) to block off a section under the coop so the chicks could be in their with the silkies but still get away if they needed to. Everything is mobile-ish as we figure out our final set up, so this won’t be the layout, but these are the spaces we’re working with right now.
 

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Is your run predator proof? If so you could put a shelter in run section for chicks so they can live there 24/7?
Do you mean in the chicken dome, so making it more of an open air coop set up? Or do you mean in the run section underneath the coop where the silkies are?
 

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