New mommy

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GinaKincade

GinaKincade

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Just a quickie to say hi! Love this site so far and it's been so helpful in raising my now just 5 week barnyard mix of IDA Red, Bard Rock, and a couple other types my old brain can't remember. Either way, getting ready to move them to their coop and appreciating all the amazing advice for dealing with the cooler nights. It's been a lot of work but worth every moment. Also have two 20 week old pullets we got about a week ago, as my young ones won't be ready to lay until about October, but still no eggs yet. They eat, drink, run, seem happy.
Had to show them where to bed the first couple of nights and now they go at dusk all by themselves. I'll keep the pullets and babies separated for a bit but hoping they will get along good so I can have an even dozen all in one happy family. Also hoping the older girls will help the newbies learn the ropes and save me some training. Time will tell! :D
 
Hello there and welcome to BYC!
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Congrats on all the new chicks and pullets! When mixing in new birds, they all need to be relatively the same size. So your best option is to put the chicks in an enclosure within the run for a couple of months around your pullets at all times. As the chicks grow, everybody sees everybody but nobody touches. When the chicks are about 3 months old, you can mix them in with the flock. ALWAYS add more food and water stations as the older flock can starve out the new birds. It takes a few months for new birds to be worked into any flock, so expect some jostling for position for a while.

If you have laying birds at the time of mixing, you will want to get everybody on the chick starter or some sort of Flock Raiser feed as the chicks can't tolerate high calcium layer feed without troubles with their kidneys. Too much calcium in layer feed for babies. You can leave a big tub of oyster shell around for the layers. Then a couple of weeks before the chicks are ready to lay, you can get ready with the layer feed and begin feeding it to everybody.

Enjoy this new adventure you are on and if you have any questions, feel free to ask around the forums!

Welcome to our flock!
 

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