About 2 monthes ago, we sadly had to rehome our blue laced red wyandotte due to being a rooster. he had a friend, a white cochin hen named koyuki whom we still have and since getting rid of him she has been very lonley, tends to be by herself, and is not always on the top pirch with the other bigger hens at night. round the same time of our roosters departure, we got a 2 month old americana, she'll soon be part of the outside flock and i wanted to introduce her to koyuki so they could form a sub flock and bond. i keep both of them in the coop so they can know eachother, and koyuki just flares up her neck feathers and attacks the little pullet.
No matter what you do, there will always be a little fighting. I find that adding new chickens at night helps since all the hens are in a sleep stuper. But I would still expect some fighting for pecking order. Just keep an eye out that no blood is drawn. Once blood is drawn, the gloves come off and chickens become crazy.
I find it's better to add two new chickens to the group. With two they have each other as the "newbies" and ten to fare much better that way. As a pair they are not alone at the bottom of the pecking order.
With my last batch I put them in a wire cage in the coop for a week then let them out together while I watched e eryday for a week. Then let them out all day together and just locked up the new ones at night for a week to prevent fights In the coop in the morning before we let them out for the day. Then I just let them out all the time and had zero damage to anybody. It was a pain but worth it to prevent injuries.
