New Chick Help.

[midas]

Hello,

We just added a new chick to our flock of three. We had 4 Chicks that where 2.5 weeks old and one died accidentally yesterday. So today we went out and picked up one more that is 1.5 weeks old or so. It looked like they would all get along, but after a hour the new Chick which is smaller started to peck at the larger 3. So now one larger chick is pecking real hard on the newer one.

Should we separate them.
Or Let them work it out.
I just don't want another dead chick today.

please help.

Thanks,
Jeff

 

[Mahonri]

Keep an eye on them... separate as needed.

 

[thebirdfarm]

I too would just watch them they are like older hens when you introduce a new one they just need to work out the pecking order. If one gets too beat up I would seperate it. How I seperate mine though seems to work good. I put a piece of plexi glass in the brooder and seperate them with that then they can still see each other and can peck the glass but they won't hurt each other. Before you know it they will be laying up against the glass by each other and then you can usually put them back together without any problem.

Also it helps if your brooder has shavings in it to give them something else to peck, but you may already be doing that anyway.

 

[RAWR]

watch them closely.if you have to, separate them.

 

[cmom]

I agree with the other posts. Watch them closely and separate if you have to. Are they in a brooder? If they have plenty of space you will probably have less of a problem. I had one die and replaced it. I gave the chicks a playground. They were so intent on exploring that they left the younger one mol alone. All is well now.

 

[midas]

Thanks everybody for all the great advice. They seemed to have worked out a pecking order. The little chick was aggressively pecking one of the larger chicks. The larger chick would peck her really hard. So I think they worked it okay. All was well this morning.


Thanks again,

Jeff
CA