Looking for Some Quarantine Specifics

[Firefly]

Hi all. I am picking up a couple of Araucana hens today. I went last week to check them out (they belong to a neighbor-- she has 17 hens and is looking to downsize her flock) and they appear healthy; the environment was clean. I am still planning on doing the 4-6 week quarantine though. I have a large size dog crate I'd planned to use for the quarantine period. Two questions though:

1. Is it large enough for two? It's about 3Lx2W (and 2.5 ft high)
2. Should I provide a spot to lay during the quarantine period?
3. Should I provide a roost?

I'm a little worried about them going stir crazy in there for four weeks... or should I not be concerned? I've never integrated adults before so am really unsure about this. Thanks for reading!

 

[Steve_of_sandspoultry]

I think a dog crate is very small for a month myself. We have a quarantine pen that we made. it's about 10 feet square and doubles as a maturnity pen, isolation pen etc. You can speed up the process by adding one of your birds to the newcomers.

We isolate any new birds by them selves for a week when we get them and keep a close eye on them. Then add a "sacrificial" bird from our flock, if there are any issues from the new birds to ours or vice versa it will show pretty quickly. That way you can trim the process to about 3 weeks.

Steve in NC

 

[Firefly]

Thank you, Steve!