putting younger chicks in with older

[Princessfarmer]

i have 8 four month old chickens, 5 hens and 3 bantam roos. I have 9 chicks who are about 6 weeks old.....how do i start incorporating them into the coop? I let them go in the coop for small periods but the bigger chickens start being mean to them and i put the babies away? At some point they all have to live together....how can i make this easier?

 

[Judy]

The best way seems to be to have them separated by some sort of fence so they can see and hear each other -- usually I read a month or til they are all the same size. I have always wound up mixing them sooner than that and have not had a problem -- but that doesn't mean I did it the right or safe way. In some cases they did it themselves, escaped or climbed a fence. There's no predicting chickens, i've decided.

 

[jtbrown]

If there is any way you can allow them to see each other through a fence, I have read that helps. I integrated same age bantams in to standards, it seemed to work to put bantams in mini cage within coop and then turn them loose after a few days supervised, then put back in mini and increase time out til everyone was *mostly* friendly. It worked well even with size difference. Good luck

 

[BrattishTaz]

I have a brooder divided by chicken wire. I had chicks in there that were about two weeks apart. The older ones managed to break the divider and killed one chick and scalped another.

That incident occured over a month ago. I began freeranging all of them together again a few days ago with no issues at first. I thought all would be ok until they did it again. I know some people mix ages with success but that has not been my experience.