Well now that we have finally gotten the hang of this chicken raising we are going to triple the size of the run and add more boxes etc. We are going to purchase 25 meat chicks and another 25 laying chicks. My question is: Will I need to keep the chick separated from the older hens and the Roo and if so for how long? The chicks will be 2-3 days old when they are delivered. If I need to, I can keep the chicks in the original coop (see my page), and put the older hens and the roo in the expanded run. I would appreciate any input on this.
I would absolutely keep them seperated. With out a hen to protect them, your chicks may become a new type of fast food! Let them grow up until they are of a size to not be too edible, but within sight of the other birds, and when they are old enuff put them together over night in a BIG space, and they will sort it out nicely. Good Luck!
I get 100 meat chicks a year, 200 last year and put them in with my existing 21 hens and one rooster. We get our chicks in mid April so it is warm enough to let the hens outside. I keep the ckicks in a wading pool with two heat lamps over them and it has worked great for the past two years. When they start hopping out of the pool I just partition part of the coop off until they are feathered out probably 3-4 weeks old. Then I let them all comingle. Since the hens can be outside they would rather be out chasing bugs than bothering with the peeping din in the coop. You can get different size pools depending on how many chicks you get. We have the largest you can buy and store it uncer our coop or behind our shed for the next year. Hope this helps.
