Is it true?

[hdchic]

Last week the DH and I were discussing getting more chicks, and somehow the topic went to putting different breeds of babies together.

I guess a friend of the family had some 'day olds' that he put in the brooder, 1/2 of them were white ones, and the other half were black ones....PLEASE DO NOT THINK THIS IS A RACIAL ISSUE.....and an old farmer came by to look in on the chicks. Evidently he told the guy that eventually, the chicks will seperate themselves, and that the black ones would dominate and eventually kill the white ones. Well....

One day the guy went to feed the chicks and lo and behold it was true, they had seperated to each side of the brooder. A week later he went in to find the white ones had been pecked to death in the night.

This is 3rd hand information, so I'm not sure of the accuracy...has anyone heard of babies of different breeds being raised together then seperating like this?

 

[fowltemptress]

My chicks always pretty much mingle indiscriminately when young, but once they grow up they do have a tendency to form groupings of the same breed or color . . . even my parrot prefers toys the same color as herself, it's a bird thing. But that pecking to death of the white chicks sounds like hogwash to me. If there were even a grain of truth to the story, I would assume the white chicks were probably a sickly batch of chicks or something, and someone's imagination ran away with them when trying to figure out how they died.

 

[tomstephens]

we have all different breeds and colors and they were more or less happy together when they are young but as they got older they just sort of seperated into little breed cliques.

I think the idea that some were killed because they were a different breed or color is just silly. Like fowltemptress said, they were probably sickly or something.

 

[FutureChickenMan]

I've had mixed batches in the brooder, never had a problem.

RIRs, Leghorns, BR, Sussex, DC's, EE's, Marans, etc.

 

[FLchook]

Ive always raised "barnyard speicals" and have had rainbows of colors. Never had a problem, as peepers, or adults.

 

[Harley's girl]

Mine have always lived peaceably together. But they have always been together. I have not had a solid color and then put in a different color. My DH got meat birds that were 3 days old. He tried to put a fancy breed in with them and with in seconds the meat birds started attacking the fancies, they were separated in different bins. So.......I would say if they were put together from the start there should be no problem. But then again, maybe it was just that the meat birds were hungry. Who knows. It could have to do with the breed too.

 

[dacjohns]

My teenagers seem to segregate.

 

[LuannKeller]

I have a white hen who kills or tries to kill dark chicks but is a great mom to yellow chicks. I notice that light colored chicks do suffer if they are a minority.

 

[Red]

I have two Black Sex Link hens and a Light Sussex, they live fine together and are all great friends. The white one is at the bottom of the pecking order, but that is because she was only 12 weeks old when we introduced her to the BSL, whereas they were over a year old.

 

[MissPrissy]

Yes, it is true - chicks and chickens will sort themselves by color. These chicks are 1 day old in the brooder photo.

Maybe SpeckledHen will come along with her photo of her hens on the back steps.