Introducing two new hens to our single existing hen.

[juliasc]

Hi everyone!

Three days ago we lost our sweet Pie to a heart attack. We are absolutely devastated, but since Pepper is now alone and seemingly very confused and/or bored, we started looking at adopting another hen. (We got Pie and Pepper back in February as baby chicks and they were inseparable).

Yesterday I found two girls in the area in need of a new home. They are the same breed as Pepper (Leghorns), maybe a month or two younger, if not the same age (between 6-8 mo), and we are so excited to welcome them this weekend.

Does anyone have similar experiences or tips on how to best integrate the new gals with Pepper? Pepper is sweet, yet a little shy, and my biggest fear is putting too much stress on her. Any and all advice is greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance!

 

[SueT]

Welcome to BYC! Arrange a 'see-no-touch' set up, and monitor their reactions. Good luck!

 

[juliasc]

Welcome to BYC! Arrange a 'see-no-touch' set up, and monitor their reactions. Good luck!

Hi Sue,

Thanks for your response! We have a medium/large wire crate that we were thinking of using for the "see-no-touch" introduction. Do you think that would suffice?

 

[BlueBaby]

Hello, and welcome to BYC! Yes, that type of wire crate is what I use.

 

[Lazy Farmer]

Integration isn't always so bad if they have a ton of get away space.

 

[juliasc]

Hello, and welcome to BYC! Yes, that type of wire crate is what I use.

Hi! Thank you for the warm welcome!

I'm glad to know the wire crate will work. This will be the first time introducing new chickens, so I wanted to make sure.

 

[feathermaid]

Hello there!

Getting adult hens is always trickier than baby chicks. You will have to quarantine the new birds for several weeks and hope they don't have anything contagious that will endanger your current hen. And it's best to set up a "look but don't touch" situation so they can all get used to each other before actually mingling together.

I prefer to get babies. The older hen(s) are usually more tolerant and less stressed when integrating, and it can be done in a few short weeks by offering a type of barrier the chicks can fit through but the big one can't. About 3-3 1/2" is good. That way they can run back to safety if needed.

I did use a hardware cloth barrier at first until the babies were big enough to know where "home" was. These little girls were barely 5 weeks old when this pic was taken. With babies, you don't have to worry much about bringing in unwanted sickness. You could also use a wire dog crate to separate, but that probably wouldn't work for larger birds.

 

[juliasc]

Integration isn't always so bad if they have a ton of get away space.

Hi there! That's good to know! Would you suggest placing the crate inside the run with Pepper, or outside of it completely, then let Pepper out to free range depending on her reaction?

 

[adrikeen]

Glad you joined our flock! Pull up a roost!

 

[alexa009]

Welcome to Backyard Chickens! We are glad you joined the flock! BYC is a helpful site providing all the information you need to know about poultry! Integrating isn't really a problem when you aren't introducing a lot of chickens to one chicken. Providing a lot of places to get away such as roosting poles should work. Hope you enjoy it here as much as we all do!