New pullet danger

HollyKMS

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Today, tried to add a new bantam to other 3. The original 3 have been trying to kill her. I starting rotating time in coop vs range time with the 3 regulars and the new girl, to keep her safe. She's roosting with them tonight but RE earlier posts on this site, I've thrown together a colossal dog crate for her so I can get up before sunrise and remove her. Plan to alternate ranging time.

Question is this- Should I still put her in to roost with them each night (after the natural light is gone and just before the artificial light goes down) or do I keep her entirely separate? It's not too cold, not below 50s all this week, at night. I'm getting mixed signals about the night-roosting deal on previous posts......

Also- your earlier posts say 1 mos separation- Is that the typical time to acclimate them? The other three have been together for less than 2 wks and all 4 chickens are less than 5 mos old. Will 1 mos be the standard? Just wondering

I really screwed the pooch on trying to add a single new 1 to a fresh group of 3.. I had no idea chickens could be so VICIOUS. Important lesson! How does anyone EVER add new chickens to a group, with all this aggression?!
 
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whenever I add birds I try to move them all around to where there aren't on anyone else's turf. If you can't do that then maybe take the ones that were there first and pen them up somewhere else for a few days and let the new one stay in their pen and then put the others in there after she is settled in.
 
the 1 month thing, is isolation.. so you can make sure the chicken isn't sick or have bugs or anything else that can get into your existing flock.. this should be done completely away from your flock... after that 1 month you begin the integration process.. lol.. which could be 1 week to 3 weeks depending on the birds... i know with my one red that's in my banty coop, after her isolation, she went loose in that coop after day 1.. they love her...
i have 3 barred rocks that are about 2 months behind my other chickens in age, and even after 3 weeks of being in the same coop but inside a smaller cage, so they can see each other and get used to each other, it still took about 3 or 4 days before the other chickens really left them alone... i had to keep an eye on them around the food for about a week still after letting them loose.... lol..
good luck on the integration
 
Thanks for all the great advice! Very helpful!
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