Introducing a new baby to my flock.

[Fluffychicky]

I have a flock of 9 week old chickens, and was just talked in to getting a 4 week old blue polish (Skeeter). Well she's about half the size of my 9 week olds and they've already tried pecking at her when I set her down for a minute so I'm scared to leave her with them. I currently have her in a cage in their run so they can't get her but she has a little room to move around, the way the coop is I can't really separate it so she can't stay in there but she's pretty protected where I have her. When and how can I safely let her run with the big girls? I just don't want them to kill her!

 

[Fluffychicky]

shameless bump

 

[TXchickmum]

If you have time, it would be beneficial to let them all out of the run to roam around together while you supervise. That helped us integrate smaller chicks with larger ones. They had room to be close to one another, yet move away from one another if they needed to. We had two chicks that were several weeks older than one when we purchased them. -thought we could place the three together without any problem. The larger two ran over the smaller one. We purchased another chick the same age/size as the small one and kept those two together for a few weeks. We then placed all four together, and everyone was fine. -seemed like having more than a single small chick helped. The pair of them didn't get picked on.

Anyway, I hope that you find a good solution that works for you and your flock! Best of luck!

 

[BoiseChik]

I had a very similar problem. I had a group of 6 chicks that were 9 weeks old and then one single chick that was 3 weeks old. The bigger ones were very aggresive to the single chick even through the wire of her seperate cage. She also seemed distressed being seperated. So, I broke down and got more chicks that were her age, and ended up with two equal size groups. That worked much better. Now I can let the two groups free range my back yard at the same time, and they don't have much trouble. The two age groups stick to themselves, and at night the older group goes in our outside coop, and the younger group goes in my inside brooder box. My plan is that once the younger group is at least 8 weeks old, and fully feathered (is what I've been told) I will join the two groups in the coop at night too. Best of luck.

 

[Fluffychicky]

UPDATE*
Skeeter was killed about a week ago by what I think was a raccoon, and in my grief I drove an hour to buy a silkie. The silkie is named Taco and she has done much better with my flock she loves the rooster and is slowly learning to stay with the group. They have stopped picking on her and all is well, I have also fortified my coop and run so no more stupid coon attacks!

 

[Studio2770]

You should get a trap to take care of that coon. We saw a fox around several weeks ago and we have a trap set.