My wee-small first egg and merging flocks

[mijaryer]

Well... it happened... the chicken laid the egg. Bahdum-cha!

Yes!

Background:
I have 3 laying chickens that I inherited from the person I bought my house from (2 Buff Orphintons, 1 Americauna). We bought them a new coop and built a much larger run for them to frolic in (photos here). Then, we used the old small coop that came with the house to hold our 3 new ladies (1 Cuckoo Bluebar, 1 French Black Copper Marans, 1 Cream Legbar) once they became pullets. For the last 1-2 months we place that coop & small run on the other end of the big run so they could get to know each other safely, and last week we finally opened the gates and merged them. All seems well aside from my Americauna who likes to chase them back into the coop on occasion. No blood. Few tears. All is great... Except... they still operate as 2 separate flocks. We would like to remove the smaller coop and have them all share the nicer one.

Question:
Will both flocks naturally merge into one coop? Or will I have to remove the 2nd coop and try the "bring the ladies into the other coop at night" game. Any suggestions?

 

[bobbi-j]

You will most likely have to remove the one coop. Chickens are creatures of habit and don't like change. You may have to put them into the other coop for a few nights until they figure it out. They may eventually act like one flock, rather than two. Especially once the younger ones mature and they are all together for awhile.

 

[aart]

I'd give them some time as is for now......sounds like a successful integration.
Pics on your blog show a pretty nice chicken run(do they stay in there?) but not sure of the sizes of your coops.
Let them get better acquainted for a few more weeks, then maybe attempt to force them into the same coop.
Getting along out in in a large run is one thing, but depending on the size(feet by feet) of coop, sharing coop space could be a different ball o' wax.

 

[Mrs. K]

Just shut up the smaller coop so they can't get in, and then you may have to put them in the bigger coop once or twice.

Mrs K