I have two hens in the booding house now. It is hard to tell but they are in the nest boxes and they each have a dong cage in front of them. One was due yesterday and the other hopefully will adopt chicks from my daughter's class when they hatch in 2 weeks. My question is how soon can I put the two groups together in the coop. There are no other hens to worry about except the two mothers and there is a downstairs to this coop so the chicks will have to get bigger before I let them go down to the outside area. My main consern is the cages are going to get pretty cramped so can I put them together or do I need to find a better way of separating the coop? If so how long do I have to wait before I can put them together?
I have three hens each with a batch of chicks right now, too. The problem is that a hen with chicks can get pretty defensive. Two hens, each thinking they're defending their chicks, might get into a serious fight. I have mine separated, but one slipped out accidentally and got attacked by one of the other mothers, who grabbed onto the first hen's comb and wouldn't let go. Seriously, she was acting like a pit bull. I'm going to wait until the chicks are a lot older before I try mixing them.
I was kind of wondering the same thing except I dont have the mama's. I have 3 eight week old chicks and 5 three week old chicks. I have only put them together in the yard for the last two nights for about an hour, supervised. They mostly ignore each other. But if the 5 little ones get near the other 3, one of them pecks at them (I think he is a rooster, but not sure). How did I get them to mix and when?
Well I just wanted to answer my own question here. It was getting too cramped with 14 chicks and 2 moms in that little coop using the dog cages so I took them off and introduced the two batches. Well the moms get into it quite often when they get too close to each other. The moms each have chick but they are 2 weeks apart. So the chicks stay out of the way and they don't really mind being around one another. The mom with the younger chicks stays in the the main coop still she hasn't ventured out and she runs the older chicks off when they try to join in or get separated from the other mom. I have opened the coop up in the mornings and the older group comes out and is now free ranging. They stay away from the main hens when they come snooping around they don't seem to be more than courious about the chicks they just leave them alone for the most part. The moms are the grumpy ones! 8 are 4 weeks old on Friday and the other 6 are 2 weeks old today. The mom of the younger ones came out and called to her chicks today but they didn't come down. She still spends a lot of time in the nest with them. The older group don't even come back in. Last night was the first night I didn't have to put them back myself. I hope that keeps up. It seems very stressful when I have to put them back. Mom doesn't like it when I mess with her chicks.
