New strategy for integrating new chicks

[IamRainey]

I've got 6 adult hens, 2 seven-week-old chicks and 2 four-week-old chicks.

The 7wos have been living in a wire kennel in the run for 4 weeks now. I just took the 4wos out to move in with them. They took to one another just fine without any conflict I've seen.

They'll continue to be out there in the kennel for the foreseeable future so they get their starter feed unmolested and everyone gets comfy-boo with one another. And I've started laying down BOSS just outside their kennel. The hens eat in their area, of course, and the chick's starter feed is protected inside with them. But my hope is that if the best stuff that they look forward to the most is adjacent, they'll look forward to eating next to one another unthreatened before they're ever out in the same population.

Waddaya think? Sound like it will be a successful plan?

 

[grayjay11o]

It depends on how mean your other breeds are. If you have Cochins or a friendlier breed they should do fine but if you have Reds they will probably beat them up anyway.

 

[IamRainey]

I've got 2 Orpingtons, a Cream Legbar, a Plymouth Rock, a Wyandotte and a Sicilian Buttercup. Don't know how any of them are rated on a friendliness scale but in the past only the Plymouth Rock has been a mean girl. And she eventually relented.