Ordering new Pullets

[Evadig]

Good evening!

I was up in the wee hours of the morning and looking over chicken hatcheries...the short story is I've ordered three pullets; one is being shipped from Illinois and I pick up the other two at a local farm. They're all about eight weeks old. The one coming from Illinois will arrive on Wednesday but I can't pick up the other two until Monday. They will all live together in the same coop. So my two questions are:

• Do I need to observe quarantine between the Illinois pullet and the local pullets?
• The temperature will be highs of 70 F this week but will drop to 50 by next week. The lows are 60 F this week and low 30 next week. Is this too cold for them?
• Where should I keep the Illinois pullet until her flock mates arrive? I was thinking in the house but maybe that would be too much of a temperature shock then. At the same time I'm worried about her all alone in the coop.
• Can they eat all flock feed or should I get them chick feed?

The pullet from Illinois is a Jubilee Orphington, and the two from the local farm are an Australorp and a Ameracauna, if that helps

Thank you for any advice!

 

[aart]

Do I need to observe quarantine between the Illinois pullet and the local pullets?

I would think, yes.
BYC Medical Quarantine Article

Can they eat all flock feed or should I get them chick feed?

All flock is fine, I've never fed anything else to my birds ...hatch to harvest.

 

[NatJ]

I've ordered three pullets...They're all about eight weeks old.

• Can they eat all flock feed or should I get them chick feed?

Either of those options would be fine, all flock feed or chick starter.

• Where should I keep the Illinois pullet until her flock mates arrive? I was thinking in the house but maybe that would be too much of a temperature shock then. At the same time I'm worried about her all alone in the coop.

She will not like being alone, but I would probably put her in the coop anyway. That will let her get used to the coop and feel comfortable there, instead of getting used to the house and then changing again.

(It would probably be fine to have her in the house instead, just not what I would personally choose.)

• Do I need to observe quarantine between the Illinois pullet and the local pullets?

Different people will give different answers on this one.

Personally, I would not. If they share diseases, you have at most 3 birds to treat. If you keep them separate, you might have to treat 1 or 2 birds instead of 3, but that is not a big difference.

Really effective quarantine is difficult to manage: disease germs can blow in the air, be carried by drifting feathers, travel on your hands or clothes or boots, and so forth. Trying to keep two sets of birds completely isolated on one property is difficult.

I often see quarantine recommended for 1 month. If you separate those pullets for a month, then by the time you put them together you have a pullet that has spent 1/3 of her life alone. That is lonely for her, and she will probably have a harder time learning to get along with the other two at that point (because all of them are older, and because the other two are friends while she is the "intruder.")

So in this exact case, I would not try to quarantine them from each other.

(If you had a large flock of chickens, and were bringing in a few new ones, it would definitely be worth quarantining the new ones: treating a disease in a small group is much easier than treating a big flock.)