making on of you chickens adopt baby ones

[wamtazlady]

The last chicken we know of to be taken by a fox in the neighbor was taken at 1 pm. A hungry fox will not wait to hunt until evening or night if an easy dinner is available at lunch time.

 

[azygous]

I integrate beginning when the chicks arrive at day one. They are brooded right outside in the run in a safe pen in full view of the adult flock. The adult chickens are there every day while the chicks are growing and learning how to be chickens so they are accepted into the flock by proximity. The chicks, in turn, grow up understanding how adult chickens behave. It's no scary mystery to them when they start to mingle with them at age three weeks.

I then open chick size portals into the rest of the run from their safe pen when they reach that age. They are then able to access the adult sections of the run, racing back to safety in their safe pen when the pecking order becomes stressful. I give them an hour or so with the adults the first day, increasing it a bit each day. When I see the chicks are able to handle the adults and understand how to get back into their safe pen, I leave the portals open all the time for them to come and go at will. Their food and water remain inside of this safe pen until they reach three months old. At that time they no longer fit through the 5 x 7 inch portals.

At age five weeks, I move them into the coop where they learn to roost over the next week, and they are usually going into the coop on their own by age six weeks.


I use the heating pad system of brooding chicks, not a heat lamp. When the chicks move into the coop with the adults, I move their heating pad cave with them and they sleep in it for the first night or two. Then I remove it and start placing them on the perch to roost. It takes about three nights for them to catch on and sleep on the perch.



The entire process of integration is effortless since the chicks have been members of the flock since day one. There are so many advantages of brooding chicks with the adults, it's hard to list them all, but one of the biggest advantages is that the chicks develop an amazing level of self confidence that simply isn't present in brooder raised chicks.

Think about it. If you spent a good part of your childhood in a box with no windows to the outside world, you'd be very frightened upon seeing the big world for the first time when suddenly you find yourself in school. It's just like that when you take baby chicks out of the confinement of a brooder and stick them in with the big chickens. They're scared to death of them.

I'd like to see brooders done away with. They really aren't good for baby chicks. Brooders aren't good for your house, either.

 

[Ch1ckChick]

OK were your chickens full grown when you introduced them

 

[Ch1ckChick]

I have a smaller coop within the bigger coop would that work so the adults can still see them?

 

[Ch1ckChick]

Yes I know to dispatch it I had a separate forum on laws of fox catching