- Jul 8, 2015
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Hi everyone!
I am new to posting but not reading the forums. This site has helped me a lot on my journey to getting the city to approve backyard chickens to setting up my coop. Currently I have 4 buff orpinton's and 2 silver laced wyandotte's at 16 weeks. 3 silkie hens age 9 weeks and 7 weeks. They are still inside =/ I have this fear of putting them out with the other girls. They do hang out in a fenced area next to the big girls run but still not sure when I should put them out.
This is my first go at raising hens on my own. In High School I showed them for FFA. But they did not live at my home my school had a barn.
I am new to posting but not reading the forums. This site has helped me a lot on my journey to getting the city to approve backyard chickens to setting up my coop. Currently I have 4 buff orpinton's and 2 silver laced wyandotte's at 16 weeks. 3 silkie hens age 9 weeks and 7 weeks. They are still inside =/ I have this fear of putting them out with the other girls. They do hang out in a fenced area next to the big girls run but still not sure when I should put them out.
This is my first go at raising hens on my own. In High School I showed them for FFA. But they did not live at my home my school had a barn.
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and Welcome To BYC! Your birds are far enough apart in age it is probably best to wait until the younger ones are about the same size (or at least as big as they are going to get), and then have a long period of the two flocks being able to see each other but no touching, through wire seem to work best, ie dividing the coop into two sections or keeping the new/younger ones in a cage inside the coup for a couple of weeks to a month at least... Not sure from what you said if they are just sharing a part of the run fencing or they are actually inside part of the coop etc. The chickens will get to know each other and sort of work out a pecking order before actually coming in contact with each other. Letting them free range together for a week or more before you try to combine them is a good idea and should help integration... It will take a couple of weeks to get the pecking order sorted out when you do eventually combine them even if they have been living side by side. Since you are adding Silkies, I would be sure you have plenty of room in the coop, and do be prepared to have to keep the Silkies separate indefinitely ... they do have a tendency to be picked on by bigger more aggressive breeds. 
