question about putting baby chicks in with adult silkies

[golden comets]

I have three week old chicks and in a couple weeks I will put them in there own coop,my question is,someone is giving me 2 adult silkie hens and one rooster can I put them all in togather?I know from reading about silkies that they are very good mothers and was wondering if they would take on the role as parents?My common sense tells me no to everything so I thought I would ask the experts.

 

[okieroy]

I have just finished sucessfully intoducing 3 six week old chicks to 3 fifteen week old hens. I took it very slowly. At first the older birds were trying to peck the younger ones constantly. Since I have the birds free ranging, I put the smaller birds in the habitat in a cage where the bigger ones could see them, but not get to them. At night I brought them in. After 2 weeks of this, I introduced them to the sleeping quarters of the larger birds. My God, you would have thought that I had ripped the wings off of the smaller birds. They squaked like I had beat them. The older birds couldn't be less interested. I am sure they just wanted them to shut up and go to sleep. In the morning, I went out early to seperate them, but everyone was happy and no feathers lost.

My motto here is slow and easy does it. I really believe the best time to "move in" together is right at bed time when everyone is the most calm.