Introducing new chickens to our ONE chicken...

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pstockton23

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We are new to chickens after buying a home and taking over the care for them! We love them, and unfortunately after months of allowing them to free range, only one of our two returned home today. Knowing chickens are best in pairs and flock animals, we would definitely like to get more soon.

On question I have, is there any need to treat introducing the new chicken(s) any differently since we don't have a full flock? Has anybody experienced this and have any tips?
 
Hi and welcome to BYC :frow We're so happy you've decided to join us:ya When you get new ones, you'll want to quarantine them for 3 weeks to a month to be sure they're healthy. Then put them in a situation where they can see each other but not touch each other for 3 days to a week and then observe when you let them together. There will likely be some ugliness, but as long as there's no blood and their of fairly equal size it should be fine.
 
G’Day from down under Ella :frow Welcome!

Great advice from rjohns and diva which I can not dispute but having been down to one very lonely chicken myself in the past, I thought I would chime in.

Because we were down to one chicken who was lonely, we made the decision to get her a friend and waive quarantine.

We found, because both were ‘single’ chickens, there was not much bickering at all and they appeared to waive fighting and bloodshed in preference of having a friend after just one day of being separated by wire.

Now, I am definitely not recommending waiving quarantine but sometimes we have to take a risk. That risk is your decision however.

What I have ensured I do from that time on is, if I can, have more than 2 chickens [currently 5] so that if you do lose one or a couple, you do not have a one lonely chicken scenario and can introduce more with the correct process of quarantine and ‘look but not touch’ integration.

I would, however, only do that with one chicken to one chicken, if you buy two chickens from the same place and they know each other, they could gang up on your original girl.

PS. I still have that original lonely chicken who is the matriarch of the little flock :love

Please let us know how you go.

Also, I hope you enjoy being a BYC member. There are lots of friendly and very helpful folks here so not only is it overflowing with useful information it is also a great place to make friends and have some fun.
 

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