Introducing Baby Chicks...

[mg1010]

Looking for some advice for introducing baby chicks to older chicks...

I have 3 8 week old chicks & 2 6 week old ducks who have been moved outside to their coop a week ago. (We had started with 11 chicks but somehow a weasel got into our basement and killed 8 of them ) About a week after the weasel incident we got 5 more chicks who are now 4 weeks old. I have been letting them see each other through the fencing of the run. When should I introduce them? Any suggestions how?

 

[PippinTheChicken]

Separate them with a material so they can see eachother... Leave it like that for a few days. Then remove the separator and watch them. Only intefere if they get really aggressive

 

[ajackalope]

I've only had to mix babies. I had 4 that were 1 week old and just got 5 that hatched this week. I got more new than existing to mske picking on harder. For a distraction I got some live crickets from the pet store. I took the new chicks out of the box and let them go, (both batches from same hatchery and all are quarantined from the adult birds) and released the crickets. After the carnage was over, about 5 minutes. My Blue Barred Olive Egger is an impressive hunter, both old and new chicks snuggled up on the Thermo Peep and went to sleep. No problems at all.

 

[danceswithronin]

I swear by these pop-up dog pens, there's a few different brands/models out there but this is the basic design. Whenever I raise chicks I raise them in here, and I have also used them to separate new chicks from an existing group when I was introducing them a few weeks apart. Really well ventilated and lets the chicks see each other but prevents any direct interaction or chasing/fighting. A week or two in the box and eventually you can just feed them all together and they should be cool.