New Chicks with One Old Chicken

[cmgallardo]

Hi, I've been researching on the best way to add new chicks to flocks. I don't necessarily have a flock though, I have one lone 3 year old chicken. Would I still need to follow the same routine? Anyone with any experience on introductions when you just have one resident chicken.

All advice is appreciated. Thank you!

 

[chicmom]

Make sure the chicken you introduce to your older one is relatively the same size. Your 3 year old will feel like her territory is being invaded, so she won't be happy. Can you add more than one? I would add at least two. That way, the newbie wouldn't be the only one your hen will have to focus on.

 

[Mrs. K]

When adding birds to a flock, I always try and keep it balanced.

So the bird in the home territory has +, the bird that is oldest +, the most aggressive bird +,

Adding new bird is a negative, but adding two new birds is neutral, adding 3 new birds, gives a slight advantage to the newcomers, if you can add a few more birds than in the original flock, it can really help.

Soooo adding chicks, which lose points for size and age, and strangers...... could be tough. I would make sure they could see each other with out touching or use a one way fence, where the little ones can get through it, but the older bird cannot.

Mrs K

 

[cmgallardo]

Thank you for the tips. I now have three little chicks. Momma so far doesn't seem to care about them one iolta. They are stored away in the garage in a pen for now, while she free ranges.

Now, when they want to share her treats (meal worms), that might be a different story. LOL.

 

[tomarcs]

I've gone through something similar to this:
One 2 y/o silkie hen
26 chicks

They all lived in my garage (the hen was let out to range) while I was getting the coop built, but had a divider going down the middle to separate their pens. The fence was just a cheap metal garden type fence with big rectangular holes. For about the first two weeks, I had cardboard attached to the bottom 6 inches of the divider with zip ties, so the chicks wouldn't accidentally wander through and the hen couldn't get to them.

Eventually the cardboard went off, and just the fence remained. At about 4-5 weeks I tried taking the fence down, everything went ok.... and then she seemed a bit too rough/aggressive with them so the fence went back.

When I got the coop and run finished, I tried putting them all out there when the chicks were about 7 weeks; this went ok.... and then she still seemed too aggressive, so back to the garage the hen went. I figured once the chicks got bigger it'd be fine. 8-9 weeks came along, put her back out there - still felt like it was a no go. At around 9-10 weeks I tried again and she still didn't seem to enjoy them, so I tried putting about 5 chicks in the garage with her so she could get used to them all over again, but I couldn't let that last one night because they were peeping so loudly, it sounded like they missed their mates and coop So those chicks were returned, and I put the hen into a small'ish dog crate (can hold two adult cats), and put her into the coop at night like that. The next morning I let the hen and chicks out, and since then everything's been pretty good.

The chicks are almost 14 weeks, and there's still issues beween the hen and chicks on occasion; sometimes she'll chase them around, or shoo them away from the food or water when she's there. They've learned she can be moody and tend to give a cushion of space, but then there's times when they're right next to each other and there's no problems (especially at night!).

I'm sure I made some mistakes along the way, but it was all a trial and error process. There were probably more attempts to introduce them then I've mentioned, and some lasted for several days before I separated again due to incidents of her attacking them. Be patient, be watchful, and always be prepared to jump in if she start's getting too aggressive.

Hope this helped even if it's just to show that it can be done