introducing a chick to the great outdoors

[Its Just Us Chickens]

A few weeks ago I posted about a cracked egg that we incubated and hatched out a chick. After that a raccoon killed several chickens including the 2 broody hens that were hatching the eggs from which this chick came. So we couldn't sneak it back under it's mama like we planned.
The chick is almost a month old now. We've been keeping it in a hamster cage in the kitchen. Sometime here soon it needs to go back out with the other chickens. How do I introduce it to the other chickens?

 

[dianaross77]

You'll probably have to wait until its roughly the same size as the rest of the flock to fully integrate it. If the cage pan on the hamster cage is removable, you could take it off and set the cage with the chick in it inside the run. That way they'll be able to see eachother but not touch. It can take a while to integrate a lone chicken into a flock. Some people have had luck taking the hen lowest in the pecking order and putting both of them together to bond and then releasing the two back into the flock. Or you could look into finding it a friend or two similar in size/age.

edited for spelling