Introducing New Babies to the rest of the Flock

[gnolan]

I'm very new to raising chickens. The previous owner of our home had built a very nice 3 room coop which has been empty for 4 years now. My neighbor asked me to take in some chickens whose owner was loosing their home and I couldn't say no. Well, long story short, I am the owner of a flock of 15 assorted birds, among which is a pair of Polish chickens.

One of the hens hatched 7 babies on Nov 1. We were afraid that the other members of the flock would harm the new babies so we put mom and the chicks in a hutch that is off the ground. Now I'm wondering if we did the right thing. Would they be safe from the other chickens if we introduced the babies to them? Mom really wants to get out and scratch.

Thanks for any help.

 

[debilorrah]

Mother hens are usually very protective of their young. I hope someone gives you an answer.....

 

[gnolan]

We released Mom and the chicks to the rest of the flock today. However, we isolated them from the more aggressive birds and stayed in the coop for about 3 hours watching and laughing at them as they copied everything Mom did. It was such a warm and beautiful day tiday and they seemed to love every minute of it. They are with the Polish roo and hen and while they are curious about the newcomers, they show no signs of aggressivness towards them. I'm wondering what Mom is going to do come roosting time. We made her a lovely home in an old dog house with a ramp for the babies to climb into, so we'll see what happens. We put them in there when we took them out of their coop ... even built a ramp for the babies to climb up since the opening was too high for them.

Thank you for responding.

 

[debilorrah]

I hope it works out. Mother hens are usually very protective so she will probably do her job just fine. Chicks grow so fast so in about 10 weeks they will be almost as big as mom and won't have any trouble We just got 4 more chicks today...