Introducing a lot of chickens to a few hens

[Mrs. K]

ps. waiting until 4 weeks is just fine.

 

[NwChickOwner]

No this won't work. 46 + 9 =55 head? You would need a huge coop of about 220 square feet, 20 x 11. Oh wait, and 6 bantams...bad case of chicken math. It really won't work, it will really be a wreck. I don't mean to rain on your parade, but sell some birds. Keep them till they feather out and are fun to watch and play, but when they stop being chicks, and older, start selling birds. I figure you can keep about 30 full size birds in your current set up, and if you have laws regulating the size of the coop, you need to stay within that.

And space is space - where are your kids going to play? Young kids playing naturally often times do not work well with chickens. Visiting the coop a couple times a day is different than sharing a play space with them. (See the part on roosters)

Start talking to your kids about the difference in keeping individual birds and keeping a flock, with birds coming and going into the flock. A lot of chickens die, rather young, it is too bad, but it happens. Talk about when you loose birds, then there is room for new birds, the circle of life. These are important life lessons.

Start talking to your kids now about being realistic. Really talk about how important it is to keep a healthy happy flock, verses keeping birds over crowed in misery. Maybe have each child pick one or two that is being kept.

It is very hard to imagine all these chicks as big hens, but they will be there. Over crowded chickens live miserable lives, and develop horrible habits such as feather picking, pecking holes in each other, bullying, and some victims can even die.

That is the reality of chickens. They are NOT BFF. Being raised together means nothing to them. Letting out for a couple of hours each day cannot compensate for too small of a coop. Humans have kept them as livestock, and for a healthy happy flock, one has to follow animal husbandry, which is different than keeping pets.

I am not sure where you are in the world, but mine in western SD go to the roost by 4:15 and don't come off before 7:15 during the dark days of winter. That is a long time to be in a overcrowded area.

This many birds are going to have a huge feed bill, and a huge manure pile. They are going to take a lot of time for the chores. They are going to be producing a huge amount of eggs, which can become a problem on itself. Reducing the size of your flock is very important animal husbandry and responsible chicken keeping. Selling the birds will pay for a lot of feed, another good lesson in management.

And then, there is the roosters. As AArt says, roosters are where the romance of chickens meets reality. Cockerels are a crap shoot. If you have kids under the age of 6, I would not recommend keeping a cockerel. Multiple roosters increases the chance of it going horribly wrong. Roosters can become very aggressive, and inexperienced people tend to vastly underestimate the violence of an attack. Kids can take the attack at face level - endangering their eyes and faces. These will be hard, as they are most darling and friendly of your chicks. BUT THEY CHANGE, and because they were friendly tends to work against people, and they become unafraid and aggressive towards people. Roosters have ruined the whole chicken experience for a lot of people.

And then there is the bantams - some people get bantams to mix well with a full size flock, and some have an ongoing disaster. Overcrowding will really push the disaster.

Not what you wanted to read, I know. And at first, one is so excited, and the extra chicks seem like they were ordained to be yours, but that is not the case. Selling point of lay pullets should be easy and profitable. The roosters will be harder. Start now, looking for solutions to too many roosters. The sooner the better with them. Of course you can process them for eating, but you may not be comfortable with that, but that is a life lesson. If not, do actively start looking how you are going to get them out of your flock.

As I stated before, you can cheat in the summer, but come fall, you have to measure your coop, count heads and make the number of birds fit the coop you have at that time. More birds than that is disaster waiting to happen, often times a bloody, ugly disaster is my experienced realistic view.

Remember, and remind your kids, you have years to enjoy this hobby. There are many different aspects of this hobby, but more is not better.

Dear me, I hope I do not sound too rough, I know you want to do what is right, but I know you want to keep them all right now, and it really won't work. Perhaps I have misconstrued your set up, and you have options I did not pick up on, but in your current set up this will really not work.
Mrs K

You don't sound rough. These are living animals and I am a beginner so I really appreciate your honesty. We absolutely don't want to put all the birds into a bad situation.

We are allowed to build a second coop. If we decide to keep them, I think we must take that option. I will start talking to friends about homes for them in case we go that route. Also the 6 bantams were included in the 55 total so two coops should be big enough? We live in a moderate coastal climate so the chickens are outside from about 6am-7pm most of the year unless it is storming.

My youngest is almost 6. Do you have more advice on the roosters? Is there an age when you can tell what their personality will be? I only ordered the 3 bantams (they sent me 6) because I was told that the rooster can be a benefit for the health and happiness of the hens. I had not heard anything about not having a rooster with young children so I appreciate that advice! The bantams (possibly roosters) are Mille Fleur and Silver Sebright Bantams, those seem popular now so hopefully that can help them. The hatchery assured me that they only sent females for the rest of the extras, I hope they are being honest.

 

[rosemarythyme]

We are allowed to build a second coop. If we decide to keep them, I think we must take that option. I will start talking to friends about homes for them in case we go that route.

I have to ask, do you actually want this many birds? Not just in terms of the space they'll take up, but the amount of feed they'll eat and eggs they'll produce? You ended up with nearly twice as many chicks than expected... I just want to make sure you don't think you must keep them if this really was more than you wanted. Started pullets should sell decently. The kids will understand if you explain that this was way more than you had planned to get, and that they'll get good new homes, and it'll be easier to get to know each one you do keep if there's not so many others to keep you busy/distracted.

 

[Mrs. K]

If you search this forum, you are going to find many rooster posts where the darling turned into the nightmare. You are going to find a lot of advice that if you do this, act like that all will be well.

When asked for advice -(and you did) I would recommend a hen only flock for the first year. Roosters take some experience, get some with raising up and interacting with the hens. I think you have 9 older hens - so you must have some experience?

I also do not advise getting roosters if it would be difficult for you to dispatch an aggressive bird. What often happens is the darling is forward, will eat out of your hand, loves to sit in your lap...and then one day they come charging across the pen with destruction on their mind. But this is the funny thing, people still love the darling chick and what they really want, is for that chick to come back, and they don't want to dispatch the cockerel. In my experience, and in a lot of experienced people on this forum, a bird that is aggressive really can never be trusted, and even if you can get him not to attack you, he will attack someone else.

If you have a lot of roosters, eventually you will get a nice one, or even a so-so one, but often times, you have to be willing to dispatch the rotten ones and a lot of people are not willing to do that.

So, if I had a 6 year old, who wanted to be doing the chickens most of the time - I would hesitate on keeping a rooster, and would quickly dispatch any cockerel with any aggressive traits. A lot of people make excuses for the roosters behavior, saying they were at fault as they touched a chicken or wore the wrong color or scared the bird or ....

I don't. I don't like excessive crowing when I come into the set up. I don't like stink eye. I don't like jumping up on something to make himself taller. I don't like beating the air with his wings or raising his hackles, or sneaking around behind me - and if I had a six year old - any of those and immediately he would be gone.

If you could not dispatch a rooster unless he actually attacked your child - well then I would wait until the child was older.

To each his/her own way of doing things. I hope this helps.

Mrs K

ps - unless you truly get unbelievably lucky and get a true gentleman and flock master - most hens are pretty darn happy without a rooster.

 

[NwChickOwner]

I have to ask, do you actually want this many birds? Not just in terms of the space they'll take up, but the amount of feed they'll eat and eggs they'll produce? You ended up with nearly twice as many chicks than expected... I just want to make sure you don't think you must keep them if this really was more than you wanted. Started pullets should sell decently. The kids will understand if you explain that this was way more than you had planned to get, and that they'll get good new homes, and it'll be easier to get to know each one you do keep if there's not so many others to keep you busy/distracted.

We are not 100% sure yet. We are going to get some homes lined up for extra roosters ahead of time. We are going to at least let them grow to pullets like you suggested and then either sell or have a second coop ready. Then, we are thinking of splitting the chickens based on how they behave with kids and then have a kid-friendly coop and an adult-only coop where we could have one rooster. We have only had chickens for a year so if you have any critiques or suggestions, please share!

 

[NwChickOwner]

If you search this forum, you are going to find many rooster posts where the darling turned into the nightmare. You are going to find a lot of advice that if you do this, act like that all will be well.

When asked for advice -(and you did) I would recommend a hen only flock for the first year. Roosters take some experience, get some with raising up and interacting with the hens. I think you have 9 older hens - so you must have some experience?

I also do not advise getting roosters if it would be difficult for you to dispatch an aggressive bird. What often happens is the darling is forward, will eat out of your hand, loves to sit in your lap...and then one day they come charging across the pen with destruction on their mind. But this is the funny thing, people still love the darling chick and what they really want, is for that chick to come back, and they don't want to dispatch the cockerel. In my experience, and in a lot of experienced people on this forum, a bird that is aggressive really can never be trusted, and even if you can get him not to attack you, he will attack someone else.

If you have a lot of roosters, eventually you will get a nice one, or even a so-so one, but often times, you have to be willing to dispatch the rotten ones and a lot of people are not willing to do that.

So, if I had a 6 year old, who wanted to be doing the chickens most of the time - I would hesitate on keeping a rooster, and would quickly dispatch any cockerel with any aggressive traits. A lot of people make excuses for the roosters behavior, saying they were at fault as they touched a chicken or wore the wrong color or scared the bird or ....

I don't. I don't like excessive crowing when I come into the set up. I don't like stink eye. I don't like jumping up on something to make himself taller. I don't like beating the air with his wings or raising his hackles, or sneaking around behind me - and if I had a six year old - any of those and immediately he would be gone.

If you could not dispatch a rooster unless he actually attacked your child - well then I would wait until the child was older.

To each his/her own way of doing things. I hope this helps.

Mrs K

ps - unless you truly get unbelievably lucky and get a true gentleman and flock master - most hens are pretty darn happy without a rooster.

After reading this I did a different search for aggressive roosters in the forums and got an entirely different set of search results than when I first looked this up. I really wish I would have talked to you before ordering the straight run bantams!

So far our plan is to let the chickens grow out. We are discussing two options.
The first is to sell the extra pullets after we figure out which are our favorites and to re-home the roosters. We are going to set up some possible rooster homes either way. I don't want to be attacked by a rooster so I am now mentally prepared to get rid of any aggressive birds. Side note and one more question about rooster though, I am seeing conflicting info about if a young rooster should be acclimated to humans or not. Some are saying if you acclimate them, they aren't scared and can be more aggressive. Others are saying to handle them frequently so they don't find you as a threat. Do you have an opinion on that?
The second option will be to build an entirely new coop and run. We will put the most docile and friendly hens in one coop that will be the kid-friendly coop. The second coop will be the less friendly birds and possibly one rooster if we decide to keep one, this will be an adult-only coop. I don't want to ruin chicken keeping for my kids so I want them to have a safe space to be with some of the hens. If we have a rooster and hen combo I am interested is seeing if we could have some babies so then that could be in the adult-only coop and the kids won't be put in danger.

I trust everything you are saying because we had the best gander and he changed when his hormones kicked in. He doesn't have spurs and he doesn't attack anyone so it is a different but I saw how quickly and dramatically a sweet lap bird can become a viper goose.

Also, thank you so much for your time and advice! It is very much appreciated!

 

[Mrs. K]

You know, I am just kind of struggling with understanding your set up. You said your coop size as 100-120 square feet. Which come next October will hold 25-30 adult size birds.

You mentioned that was the biggest coop allowed on your property, so I am assuming some kind housing rules. But they will allow you to build a second coop as big as your first coop? Do you have pictures of your current set up? I am struggling with the idea of going from 9 birds to over 50 birds in any kind of backyard. Maybe I am just missing that you really are on a farm?

50 head is going to require quite a bit of feed, and will be a large manure problem, smell and flies and then eggs. You are apt to get 40 eggs every day for several months out of the year. To be honest, I would not want to live close to 30 head either, and multiple roosters often will be a noise problem. If you have close neighbors this size of flock is going to be a problem.

As to your last question on caring for roosters and outcome of behavior. I have had chickens for more than 20 years. I have had a lot of roosters, some good, some so-so and 3 that were fantastic, some absolutely rotten. Personally I think you get good roosters with a sharp knife, and remove the bad roosters. Every rotten rooster keeps you from a good one.

I have read a lot of posts, and from a lot of people with a lot of different viewpoints. Walk briskly, be important, confident, to make a friend out of him. Personally, I prefer a cockerel that has been raised in a multi-generational flock under older birds... slightly. I do not handle mine but while I like to watch chickens, and have them around, I don't handle chickens either.

Truth is, sometimes you get a good one, and a lot of the time you don't. Do not allow them to get at eye level with you. I think when you hold them on your lap, it is taking the submissive position, I rather believe in getting your bluff in early. If you wait to start training until they are aggressive it is too late. But no matter how you raise them, some turn out, and a lot do not.

The idea of rehoming cockerels to loving homes is a romantic view. It will be very difficult to re-home them. No one will want them, unless they want a cheap way to make soup. This sounds harsh, but it is the reality.

I really do not recommend hatching chickens unless you can cull chickens. 50%+ will be male chicks, and you will be back in the problem you have now.

This is my advice, you have no obligation to take it, they are your chickens, children and place and you can do what you want.

I like a multi-generational flock of chickens, not individual birds. Some birds get eaten, some birds get sold, and some like Gramma Feathers gets to stay until she passes. I currently have 9 hens, 1 rooster and 3 chicks. I like to hatch chickens - I just hatched 3, and I have a hen setting on 5-6 - which only some of will hatch. However, I really have room for 12 birds. Come the fall, 12 birds or less is what I will have. I keep a flock, not individual birds.

So, this is what I would do in your situation. I would look at my original 9 head - 5 of those would be on the cull list. Decide who it is, and ignore them. Don't pick them up, don't watch them, just feed and water.

As to the 47 chicks - divide that in half - say 25-30 is sold about the first of August, you might get someone a starter flock. Or several someones a starter flock - sometimes you will get them to take a rooster too. Sell the pullets, throw in the old girls and rooster for free.

Now, by the first of October, which is just mere weeks away - you have more chickens than last year, but you don't have to build anything else which saves a lot of money, you have taken in money for the feed bill, AND you have room where you could try a hatching a few next year. Maybe you will get a broody hen, and even if you don't keep a rooster, you could slip fresh chicks under her.

Then you repeat - you add and subtract to your flock. If you really want BFF, have a very small flock, for a couple of years.

Mrs K

 

[NwChickOwner]

You know, I am just kind of struggling with understanding your set up. You said your coop size as 100-120 square feet. Which come next October will hold 25-30 adult size birds.

You mentioned that was the biggest coop allowed on your property, so I am assuming some kind housing rules. But they will allow you to build a second coop as big as your first coop? Do you have pictures of your current set up? I am struggling with the idea of going from 9 birds to over 50 birds in any kind of backyard. Maybe I am just missing that you really are on a farm?

50 head is going to require quite a bit of feed, and will be a large manure problem, smell and flies and then eggs. You are apt to get 40 eggs every day for several months out of the year. To be honest, I would not want to live close to 30 head either, and multiple roosters often will be a noise problem. If you have close neighbors this size of flock is going to be a problem.

As to your last question on caring for roosters and outcome of behavior. I have had chickens for more than 20 years. I have had a lot of roosters, some good, some so-so and 3 that were fantastic, some absolutely rotten. Personally I think you get good roosters with a sharp knife, and remove the bad roosters. Every rotten rooster keeps you from a good one.

I have read a lot of posts, and from a lot of people with a lot of different viewpoints. Walk briskly, be important, confident, to make a friend out of him. Personally, I prefer a cockerel that has been raised in a multi-generational flock under older birds... slightly. I do not handle mine but while I like to watch chickens, and have them around, I don't handle chickens either.

Truth is, sometimes you get a good one, and a lot of the time you don't. Do not allow them to get at eye level with you. I think when you hold them on your lap, it is taking the submissive position, I rather believe in getting your bluff in early. If you wait to start training until they are aggressive it is too late. But no matter how you raise them, some turn out, and a lot do not.

The idea of rehoming cockerels to loving homes is a romantic view. It will be very difficult to re-home them. No one will want them, unless they want a cheap way to make soup. This sounds harsh, but it is the reality.

I really do not recommend hatching chickens unless you can cull chickens. 50%+ will be male chicks, and you will be back in the problem you have now.

This is my advice, you have no obligation to take it, they are your chickens, children and place and you can do what you want.

I like a multi-generational flock of chickens, not individual birds. Some birds get eaten, some birds get sold, and some like Gramma Feathers gets to stay until she passes. I currently have 9 hens, 1 rooster and 3 chicks. I like to hatch chickens - I just hatched 3, and I have a hen setting on 5-6 - which only some of will hatch. However, I really have room for 12 birds. Come the fall, 12 birds or less is what I will have. I keep a flock, not individual birds.

So, this is what I would do in your situation. I would look at my original 9 head - 5 of those would be on the cull list. Decide who it is, and ignore them. Don't pick them up, don't watch them, just feed and water.

As to the 47 chicks - divide that in half - say 25-30 is sold about the first of August, you might get someone a starter flock. Or several someones a starter flock - sometimes you will get them to take a rooster too. Sell the pullets, throw in the old girls and rooster for free.

Now, by the first of October, which is just mere weeks away - you have more chickens than last year, but you don't have to build anything else which saves a lot of money, you have taken in money for the feed bill, AND you have room where you could try a hatching a few next year. Maybe you will get a broody hen, and even if you don't keep a rooster, you could slip fresh chicks under her.

Then you repeat - you add and subtract to your flock. If you really want BFF, have a very small flock, for a couple of years.

Mrs K

We are on a small farm. The smallest lots are 5 acres so we are on a 5 acre lot with a few 5 acre lots around us and then larger lots and state forest land. We can only see one other house on the top of a hill and another in a little valley. Almost everyone around us has livestock and flocks of birds. We can have as many coops/barns/etc as we want without permits as long as they're 120 square feet or less. The permits cost as much as a building around here so we build everything under that limit.

Near our area are a few small cities and we have gotten a lot of questions about eggs. We have many more requests for eggs than we could fulfill. We are considering if we keep more, we can use the eggs to pay for the feed. But that is a business setup not a personal one. So that is why we were considering the adults only coop so that the "tough" decisions wouldn't be made with the kiddos in mind.

 

[Mrs. K]

Well that makes your plan a bit more doable. Personally, I think you would be better to double your flock and see, do you like it, is it too much more work? If so, then the next year add to it again. That would give you longer to get the building done, and a bit more experience with a larger flock. And most your chickens would not be the same age.

Thing is, 10-12 head is not much work. You can carry a bucket of water, and a bucket of feed, and a wheelbarrow to clean out. But you start getting a large flock, then you have really need an automatic water system, you need a place to compost manure, you need a cart or wagon. And leaving them for a couple of days becomes much more difficult and risky. These are just all things to consider.

And you get more problems with parasites, with social disorders, and disease in a larger flock.

I hope I have been of help - I feel like I am just raining on your parade.

Mrs K

 

[rosemarythyme]

We are not 100% sure yet. We are going to get some homes lined up for extra roosters ahead of time. We are going to at least let them grow to pullets like you suggested and then either sell or have a second coop ready. Then, we are thinking of splitting the chickens based on how they behave with kids and then have a kid-friendly coop and an adult-only coop where we could have one rooster. We have only had chickens for a year so if you have any critiques or suggestions, please share!

Sounds good, and reading through your other answers further down gives me a better idea of what you're trying to do (and we can go up 200 sq ft in an outbuilding before needing permits, so I get why you're trying to add a second coop rather than expand the first).

I do agree with Mrs. K that this could be a lot more work than maybe you originally planned for, but started pullets or POL hens should sell so at least rehoming those shouldn't be too difficult if the need arises.