RaZ - I bought two chicks for my bantam hen and she beat the heck out of them. She did not see 'chicks' as 'friends' so I kept them inside til they were about 5 weeks old and then integrated them with my hen. Five days after putting them all together, my hen had pneumonia and after treating it twice and finally culturing the bacteria, all three chickens were euthanized.
Not sure who gave what to whom but I can tell you that nobody had any symptoms until I put them together. And I had quarantined the chicks in my house for 5 weeks plus done fecal checks and vet exams on both my older hen and the new chicks. I could not have been more cautious.
If I were you, I would try to get a flockmate of Gravy's because she has already lived with 1Muttsfans chickens and did well.......mixing in chickens from a third flock might bring in something to your flock that you don't care to bring in.
No offense to MOM2EM but honestly, the less different flocks you pull your birds from - the less risk you take of losing your existing flock.
I don't disagree with anything that you have pointed out. I consider bio-security as a top priority. Especially as I learn more from this forum and outside research.
I may have started this flock adventure not knowing anything except childhood memories of keeping chickens based on what my parents and grand-parents did 40 some years ago. I've learned a lot and still have lots to learn.
Having said that, my current flock is from at least 3 different sources and were raised with chicks and ducks in more-or-less open conditions. The first batch of chicks came from
TSC, then a batch of ducks came from another
TSC. The a few more chicks were added to the mix from the second
TSC but about 2-3 weeks later. Then I had the episode with my neighbor and I got rid of some chicks by giving them to another BYC member. After a month or so, I got those BO chicks back and re-introduced them to the BSLs without any quarantine process at all. Other than a bit of pecking order re-organiztion, no problems were encountered.
Then a few months later, I had the opportunity to get the 2 BLA hens and I did do the bio-security introduction over time, since I was now aware of the risks of new birds. There were no problems there either other than one BLA (Nugget) was more bold and inter-acted with the bigger hens right from the start. Gravy was the timid hen but would follow Nugget.
Now that I've lost the bolder bantam, the shy one seems to be lost and I'm a tad concerned that she may need some company her own size. That's why I got the idea that maybe a peep or too would help her adjust. If I go through with that experiment, Gravy will be removed from the bigger girls and housed with the new peeps according to bio-security steps and if all goes well, reintroduced some time in the future.
This is all just in the "thinking" stage right now and I haven't done anything yet. I'm considering several options including just letting things stay the way they are and seeing if Gravy is fine where she is with the big girls.
I do appreciate the comments everyone has offered and I will not do anything that may bring any harm to my flock.
