Introducing new chicken

[oshy]

I have 2 chickens one light Sussex and a blue Orpington. I have purchased a new chicken (point of lay) and I have a bit of a conundrum! My Blue Oprington keeps attacking my new hen. I know it's normal for chickens to fight but they aren't fighting, literally my Blue just keeps jumping on her and biting her neck while the new hen just lays there and screeches. I just don't know what to do right now, the light sussex and new hen are sleeping soundly together but i've took out blue and put her on her in a separate coop. Any ideas of how to calm down blue and take to the new hen? I just want them to all be friends and get on! thanks in advance for any advice

 

[AuntNomi]

I would introduce them over time or maybe put them in separated area of the coop so they can see but not touch or peck at each other until they are used to each other and just take it slow. There will most likely be some scuffle as they will need to get the pecking order down. Just keep an eye out for blood -- and if you can identify a lead bully and the pecking is too rough, just isolate the bully for a week or so, preferably out of sight of the flock. Then when she is returned, she becomes the new guy, and is therefore at the low end of the pecking order.
I just last week had to remove a bulling chick, I put her back the next evening. They are chicks but she was being extremely aggressive, and I thought she would hurt badly or even kill the other. Everything has been wonderful since. I only did it over night and most of the next day because they were pretty young and felt it was enough, and luckily it was. Good luck!

 

[aart]

Single bird integration is the hardest to achieve.
It's about territory...see but no touch to start, then you'll probably have to do some juggling before they all get along.


Here's some notes I've taken on integration that I found to be very helpful.......
......take what applies or might help and ignore the rest.
See if any of them, or the links provided at the bottom, might offer some tips that will assist you in your situation:

Integration of new chickens into flock.

Consider medical quarantine:
BYC Medical Quarantine Article
Poultry Biosecurity
BYC 'medical quarantine' search

Confine new birds within sight but physically segregated from older/existing birds for several weeks, so they can see and get used to each other but not physically interact. Integrating new birds of equal size works best.

For smaller chicks I used a large wire dog crate right in the coop for the smallers. I removed the crate door and put up a piece of wire fencing over the opening and bent up one corner just enough for the smallers to fit thru but the biggers could not. Feed and water inside the crate for the smallers. Make sure the smallers know how to get in and out of the crate opening before exposing them to the olders. this worked out great for me, by the time the crate was too small for the them to roost in there(about 3 weeks), they had pretty much integrated themselves to the olders.

If you have too many smallers to fit in a crate you can partition off part of the coop with a wire wall and make the same openings for smallers escape.


The more space, the better. Birds will peck to establish dominance, the pecked bird needs space to get away. As long as there's no blood drawn and/or new bird is not trapped/pinned down, let them work it out. Every time you interfere or remove new birds, they'll have to start the pecking order thing all over again.

Multiple feed/water stations. Dominance issues are most often carried out over sustenance, more stations lessens the frequency of that issue.

Places for the new birds to hide out of line of sight and/or up and away from any bully birds.

In adjacent runs, spread scratch grains along the dividing mesh, best of mesh is just big enough for birds to stick their head thru, so they get used to eating together.

Another option, if possible, is to put all birds in a new coop and run, this takes the territoriality issues away.

Read up on integration..... BYC advanced search>titles only>integration
This is good place to start reading:
https://www.backyardchickens.com/a/adding-to-your-flock