introduction to established flock

lonestar

Hatching
11 Years
Jul 20, 2008
1
0
7
I have 3 mo old chicks that I have had since they were 2 weeks old. At 6 weeks I put them in a cage in my coop so the 4 old girls would get used to them. They are about 1/2 th size of my hens, but getting to large for the cage. I know the hens will go after them. I was thinking about putting 4''x4'' stock fence to partition the coop. I thought the chicks can get in and out of the stock fence, but the hens can not. Any thoughts? Thank you in advance.
 
We put in a howdy gate in the middle of the run under our coop so they could see each other and get used to each other before they were put together full time. We introduced 2 pullets to our older hens this year. It took a good month before they could all be together without beating each other up.

It's a really good idea to separate them in case a new one is sick too. You don't want the whole flock to get infected.
 
My chickens have a 42'x42' run and free range during the day. I put bushy branches, an over turned wheel barrow, and several 4"x4" wire mesh "boxes" in the run. The chicks went out in the run at 4 weeks old. They quickly learned where to run to get away from the older hens. I put perches on the opposite side of the coop and down low. The hens did not want to perch that low so they left the babies alone. It has been a month now and everyone gets along fine.
 

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