Introducing adolescents to each other - advice??

[YoDaT]

Hello!

I am a total newbie! I have three 6-week old pullets that just made it into their coop this weekend. So far, so good!

I have a bossy Americauna who is the leader of the "peck", a shy silver laced wyandotte, and a very curious and friendly Rhode Island Red. My coop and run is about 80 sq ft total, so I have decided to get another pullet. Yeah I guess the addiction has already kicked in!

I want to go ahead and add a fourth now because I am reading all about how its traumatic and/or what a pain it can be to introduce a new single adult chicken. If I get a 4-6 week old pullet can I just add her to the coop and expect little to no problems, because they are so young? At this young age, would they peck enough to cause serious injury? They guy at the feed store said to expect no problems at this age, but I wanted to ask this board because they'd be in the coop all day alone while I'm at work, I don't want to come home to some pecked-to-death chicken!

Please let me know your experiences and advice with this.

Thank you!

 

[NeeleysAVLChicks]

Honestly, it could go either way. I've had it both be very successful at that age and not so much. Not to feed the addiction or anything,

but I would suggest getting two more chicks the same age. You really, really need to quarantine for at least a month before adding them in and I know from experience that one pullet that age in quarantine/seclusion makes for a very unhappy chick. Plus, the introduction of 2+ chickens always seems to work out better for me than introducing one. JMHO

Good luck!

 

[YoDaT]

quarantine? why do I need to do that? I am getting this newer one from the same place that I got two of the three, they are very healthy!

oh man now I feel like there's SO MUCH I don't know!

 

[a2ms4chickens]

Hi YoDaT,

Whenever you get new chickens, you always want to quaranteen them. Even though it is coming from the same place, from the time you got your original chicks until now, there could be some sort of illness that got into the flock. You want to watch the new chick for any signs or symptoms of illness, bugs, etc. You don't want to accidently infect your already healthy chicks. If you read through the forum, you will find some people who did not quaranteen the new additions, and ended up losing a lot of their flock.

It is always better to be safe than sorry.

Good luck!!

Angie