My flocks are acting weird towards each other. Any ideas?

cupman

Songster
8 Years
Apr 12, 2011
1,543
156
171
Portland, OR
I have a flock of seven 18 week-olds and a flock of eight 12 week-olds. I put them together for the first time about a week ago and they were shy from each other at first. The big flock would chase the small flock around but there wasn't hardly any fighting, maybe a couple pecks. Well by the end of the day they were grazing together and life was good.... I thought, "Wow, that was easy." Well, it's been a week and it seems the flocks have grown apart. They all use different waterers and feeders and don't hang out around each other.

Will they eventually grow to accept each other or will this just be how they are?
 
Sounds about right. My guess is they'll eventually blend together, especially if they're similar breeds. Now they're kind of like Sophomores and Freshmen, in a few months they'll be out of high school and on a more even footing.

I integrate newbies into the flock they same way, with separate roosts and feeding/watering stations. I start in separate parts of the yard, where they can't see each other, and gradually move them closer together.
 
What I have noticed when I have gone through this after flock integration is that certain individual chickens in the younger flock are accepted by the older girls, but not all.

And then there are instances of two individual chickens who make friends from the two groups and hang around each other a lot, but that younger one isn't popular with everyone.

Reminds me of high school LOL.
 

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