New baby chicks adding to four week old chicks???

[ChickenSoup82]

My little girls friend's mom thought it would be cute to gift us another two baby chicks, problem is our other babies are already 4 weeks old and almost fully feathered and I was going to put them outside in another two weeks. I don't want to keep them seperated too long because I want them to integrate. Does anyone have any ideas of how to do this? I already read the info about putting the new ones in at night and then making a lot of commotion. Do I add them right away or wait a few days until they are a bit bigger? Should I put them all outside together in two weeks with suplemental heat or do I keep them inside for an extra two weeks until the two little ones are a bit bigger? It is winter here, just got another bunch of snow, and it is pretty cold. I don't want to lose any of them so I will err on the side of caution.
Thanks

 

[secuono]

I would put them in the same brooder but divided until they are a week old and stronger. I've had 5wk, 3wk and day olds together, but I did keep the newest away for a few days until I was sure they were strong enough to hold their own. Usually the chicks made that decision for me, they would hop out and hang with their new big siblings! Plenty of room, good even heat, they should be fine, though watch them when you first introduce them.
Same color new chicks are easier to mix than baby black chicks with older brown chicks, etc.

 

[bock]

I would definitely wait. Newborn chicks would either get trampled or pecked to death from the big girls. Could you maybe wait at eats a week or two?

 

[ChickenSoup82]

Yea I couldn't believe it when they showed up at my door with their "present". Very thoughtful and who is going to turn away cute little fluff balls but now I am stressing about it. They aren't the same as my others, they got us two black sex links and the rest are a mix of white, blue laced red, golden laced wyandottes, Black australorps and one survivor Partridge Rock Bantam (about 30 chicks were doa or died within a few hours of arrival, mostly bantams.) I put them with their own setup in a box right next to the older chicks but I don't have an extra heat lamp, I took the heat lamp off of the four week olds and put it on the babies. The older ones are all sleeping blanket style across the brooder side by side, they are probably to cold right? I have a portable heater I could put near them? Thanks for the input.

 

[azygous]

Are you up for a little improvising? If you are, you can raise the two groups together while keeping them separate.

I had this same situation last summer when I decided to raise two batches of chicks six weeks apart. I had two big appliance boxes and I taped them together, cutting a nice large pass-through joining the two-bedroom "condo". I put up a barrier of see-through rigid plastic to separate the two sections. Later, you can put up screening or chicken wire. I put both boxes up on tables and cut big windows into the back-sides so light coming from the window behind them could shine into both boxes. I covered them with transparent plastic, as well as lining the bottom with plastic and covered that with pine shavings.

The new chicks will have their own heat lamp and the four-week olds may need no more heat than what radiates over from the chicks' side. If you need extra heat, you can fill up empty plastic milk jugs with hot water. An old fashioned hot water bottle wrapped in some warm, fuzzy material would be great for the chicks to cuddle up to, also.

They'll all be able to see each other while keeping the tiny ones safe for a week or so until you decide to see how they do with supervised visits.

I need to warn you that four weeks is HUGE in chick growth, and the tiny chicks will be dwarfed by the older ones. What I did was start off with just one older chick at a time visiting the babies to see how they handled it. The babies were terrified at first by the huge chick in their midst and all ran and huddled in a corner. Some of the older chicks were very gentle with the babies, letting the babies peck them, while a few of the other big chicks just had it in their heads that the babies were fun sport to chase around the brooder. Every chick is different with different behaviors. It may work out and it may not.

If it looks like your older chicks are mellow with the babies, then you can let them grow up the rest of the way together.