Introducing new chickens

[Orit]

Now I'm dealing with excessive heat and one of my hens is not doing well. I'm going to post on the other forum. However, the interesting thing about the bully is that she is at the bottom of the pecking order in her flock. Go figure!

 

[chickenthyme]

Ok. Well I might have messed up but I did put newer chickens in playpen in the garage so they weren't out in run if it stormed and so they were there for the weekend. I am assuming these new chickens are at least a month younger than mine. I have put a fence piece in the corner of the run that has an entrance and exit and was going to put their food in there too. I have also put a cardboard partition on the roost. My husband says I need to go ahead and put them in tonight but I'm still spooked about doing it. Then I watch or read anything online about doing this and don't feel any more secure in what I'm doing. Any thoughts? Thanks!

 

[Mrs. K]

Can you take a picture of your set up? And your chickens? I call it bowing to the queen, when two birds meet, one bows and one is supreme. A chicken bows by moving away and often times out of sight.

The problem happens when the lower chicken cannot move away. In a bare rectangle that I see as many peoples runs, there is no way for one chicken to get out of sight of another chicken. Often times the queen takes offense to that, and will chase and peck to prove their point. I wonder if the only place to get out of sight is in your coop.

If you add pallets, ladders, old chairs, small pieces of plywood, stumps, saw horses, roosts it will make the run look cluttered, but it will allow birds to get out of sight, eat out of sight of other birds. That is what you really need.

Then you need to let them duke it out, unless they pin one where it cannot escape, which if it is cluttered, they can.

Mrs K

 

[chickenthyme]

Here is the set up on the roost tonight. Just came in from moving them. Feel like a basket case about this. I'll go sneak another picture of the other corner.

 

[chickenthyme]

This is the wall opposite roost. The door to go out to the run is on your left which is closed for the night. You can also see the size difference in the picture above of the girls. One of my other chickens was in the spot I had for the new girls so had to move her. What's the little growling sound they make? Snoring or the fact I was interrupting their sleep?

 

[Maugwa]

Thanks so much, Mrs. K! I feel reassured and will look into pin-less peepers. I'm thinking now that I will take the animal cage out of the coop and create a safe corner for the newbies instead. However, they rely heavily on the cage for safety at the moment (they fly to the top), and now the bully lives in the cage whenever the flock is closed in, so I am hesitating a bit to get rid of the cage. It's been 3 days now of locking the bully up in the cage whenever the chickens are in the run. The bully is not happy! Will locking her up for a few days and nights tame her a bit? I do let her out to free range so she is not totally being sequestered.

All the pallet and plywood obstacles are great ideas, a few other things I've found that helped, was to have plenty of perches in the run. There is not only the square footage of the run, but when you add vertical places, there is more places. I have hung burlap under roosts in the run, like curtains just to block vision. If you keep it 4" or 6" off the ground, you can sort of make a maze that is not a trap - smaller birds learn quick, they can slip under the curtain, or two, and disappear. Like someone else said "bowing to the Queen" they really don't need so much extra room, as they just need to get out of sight. A loose collection of branches and sticks in a somewhat of a pile works good too. Loose enough there are plenty of places birds can slip through, more places for small birds than big ones. I know it's the wrong time of year, but a used Xmas tree works great on it's side.

 

[Mrs. K]

Yes, exactly ^^^ what she is saying, they just need to break the line of sight. I have actually seen the confrontation, lower bird disappears and 30 seconds later is eating right beside the old biddy. She bowed, and that was enough.

 

[khind]

Yes, exactly ^^^ what she is saying, they just need to break the line of sight. I have actually seen the confrontation, lower bird disappears and 30 seconds later is eating right beside the old biddy. She bowed, and that was enough.

Do you have any pics of Your coop/run with pallets or other constructed "walls?" I have 4 different vertical-space areas in my run (one a 3-step ladder, one a 2-step stool, one actual roost bar, and one tree branch roost bar in a corner), but nothing to block sight like you've mentioned. I'm introducing a young rooster (4 months old) to two veteran hens who recently lost their rooster and another hen to coyotes. I want to modify the space once I get them together for their first full day in the same coop.
I have a small coop and run that sits in a t-shape/perpendicular to a cemented-down tractor coop and run. These runs touch each other but are now separated (for this new rooster's benefit) by hardware cloth stapled to the wall (the wall would normally be an opening from one coop to the other). Thus the two ladies have their own, larger tractor coop & run, and he has his own smaller coop & run. They stand and look at each other through the wire every day since I got him 11 days ago; the hens stare at him coldy. ("I dare ya!") After the 7th day, I let them all outside to forage together in the evening. I've continued to do this outdoor-together foraging-in-evening for 4 days now. There's been no blood at all, but the hens chase him away big time. He went into their tractor coop a few times after they'd gone back in, but they chased him out; but he's gone back in a couple other days while they were still outside. He's eaten out of their feeder & drunk from their water now and then, and they definitely have done the same from his when they ventured into his space while he was out.
I feel bad that I brought him by himself to join this flock, but he was all who was available from the most safe, reliable source I've been using for our chickens. And if he were a full-grown rooster already, I would placed him in the roost together with them after week one. Also, I've never integrated new birds this way - foraging together and then having the new ones sleep in a different coop -- unless they wanted to and placed themselves there, which has happened before, for a while anyway. I just remember how bossy one of my hens got with some additions a couple years ago - she stood in the doorway to the new coop all day long, for days on end, daring them to come in to eat and drink. So I'm trying to be extra careful about this lone, young rooster.
Anyway, I thought I'd keep him in his adjoining coop til day (Not night-) 14, when I figured I'd let them out together, remove the wire wall, and keep the 2nd feeding space I already have for him, for whomever to use while they're in different parts of this larger coop. That will be a Friday afternoon, and I can monitor them for the rest of the weekend before returning to work on Monday a.m.
I wonder how this all sounds, and, again, if I might do well to erect some temporary barriers. I was wondering if you had any pics of them too, because what I'm picturing makes me afraid that if I set food behind one, one of the hens could just creep up on him to harass him while he's eating in there? Or would they simply leave him alone because by being hidden he's showing deference?
Sorry this is so long!

 

[Mrs. K]

https://www.backyardchickens.com/threads/a-cluttered-run.1323792/#post-21588571

Hope this helps.

 

[khind]

Thank you. That does help, as do the other pics and comments in that thread; my run is smaller than yours, but I have a larger, enclosed yard that encircles the coop and run. I'll be adding some items into that large yard too.