So i have some hens i will eventually introduce to my adults. (They are youngins yet so wony be for a few months yet) but was wondering if removing an adult hen at the time of introducing new hens would be a good idea? My thought is it would mess up the pecking order enough for the newbies to not get to picked on and in general cause some confusion( if i do this i would have 2 adults and introduce 3 pullets and i do have a roo) any thoughts be great this is my first introduction. Otherwise ill havta rig something in the run for seperation which would be an inconvience untill i expand next year. (Yay ill be able to keep 14 hens and a roo afterwards lol)
If you interfere too much, you actually make it worse on them. If you remove one hen, you will extend the pecking order routine and when the second one gets introduced, the newbies will be subjected to the same process again. I introduced my newbies at 14 weeks since they were close to the same size. The closer to the same size that you can introduce them, the better. I created a side run next to the real run so they had a week of being next to each other and familiarizing themselves before being put dsirectly together. That helped a ton and their was no fighting. The other thing I did was put the newbs on the roost with the older hens at night so they wake up and realize they slept together and can be trusted. Good luck. I know it is tough but you have to let them do their thing.
I dont plan on to much interfering. Was going to only do 2 newbies but one hen stopped laying. Seeing as i dont want to go over 6 total chickens till expantion im gonna remove her anyway and go to camp freezer with the other babies im raising. So didn't know if i should do it earlier or same time. Also i plan on a pure rotation of every year removing the olders and replacing with newbies. ( next year my 2 current hens will go and be replaced)
