Welcome to the forum, glad you joined.
Are they all Silkies or are just the younger ones Silkies, I'm not sure? How many young ones? In general, where are you? It can sometimes help us if we know if you are north or south of the equator or what your general climate is. If you modify your profile to show that the information is always available.
I would not just put them in the coop at night. A lot of the time integration goes a lot smoother than you often read about on here. Especially if you have a lot of room and they are at about the same stage of maturity you can just put them together and they work it out. But sometimes chickens die when you try that. That's what we want to avoid. Different levels of maturity can make it more challenging.
One thing that really helps is room. How big are your coop and run, in feet or meters? Photos of how they are set up can be helpful so we can see how they work together. Do you lock them in a coop at night and open a pop door in the morning or do they always have access to the run? Do yours free range or are they locked in a run all day? That could help us make specific suggestions for your unique situation.
In general the best way to transition them is to first house them next to each other across wire for at least a week, longer is OK. That gives them a chance to get used to each other. Exactly how you might do that will depend on what your facilities look like.
Then when you can observe let them mingle. Open the gate or door and see what happens. It may take them a while to come out of their pen so you need patience. Don't rush them, let them work it out on their own as much as you can. It helps to have different feeding and watering stations spread out so the young don't have to challenge the older to eat or drink.
By all means give them as much room as you can. You can improve the quality of your room by giving them things to hide under, behind, or above. A panic room/safe haven may be helpful. That's where you have openings the younger ones can get through but the older ones cannot so the younger can escape the older if they need to.
If they want to sleep in separate places at night, let them. Don't force them to be together in small places any more than you have to.
Often when you have chickens of different maturity levels the older can be pretty brutal to the younger. Not always but really often. A successful integration is not that they are all cuddling up lovey dovey, sleeping together and eating out of the same bowls together. A successful integration is that they are not hurting each other. Once the younger mature enough they will merge into one flock. That's usually about the time the pullets start laying. If you have cockerels timing is a lot more iffy. Until they hit maturity expect to see the younger forming a different flock, peacefully coexisting but staying away from the older ones. That's where room comes in, they need enough room to avoid the older.
Many of us integrate different aged chicks into a flock all time, usually with very little drama. How we go about that depends on our facilities. Good luck!
I will try to cover most of the questions from all of you. I currently have a 4x4 coop with a 6x8 run. Free range prob might not be an option at this time. I live in N. CA. I do lock them up at night in the coop. Yes they are all silkies no other breeds. I will try to place them in the coop in a kennel of some kind to keep them safe but allow the others to be around them safely. I’ll post updates good or bad in the upcoming week.
