Quick question about quarantine

[Mrs. K]

Oh I apologize, I didn't see you had an idea on separating them.

 

[Amazonlover]

There won't be civility. Chickens have a flock mentality, and they will defend their space, even the nicest of chickens. Each chicken knows their place in the flock, and are desperate to keep it.

A common piece of advice is see, no touch, which is great advice, but can be a bit difficult to set up depending on your coop and run. Here are some ideas that can help.

The first thing you have to remember, is the new chicken will know that she does not belong there. This will scare her, that will make the other chickens who also know she is a stranger attack her. It can be relentless.

So you could flip the places, as in put your new hen in the coop/run, and the original girls where you have the new one now. This will let the new bird explore the new area, find the feed bowl, the escapes, and the coop without being chased for her life. However, as that is so far apart from your main coop, you won't get the see but no touch.

I have had good luck with, locking your original girls out of the coop and run, in your back yard. Locking the new bird in the run/coop. She can explore, they can see her in there. Feed along the fence. When it gets dark, but the new bird back in her coop, let the others back in the main coop. Repeat this for two days.

Then pick a middle of flock bird. If you don't know who is middle, walk away, drop down some treat, see who gets their first, middle and last. Take that bird and lock her in with the new bird in the coop/run, the others outside. Now there will be a dust up, but it should be mostly bluster and settle quickly. One on one is pretty even. Keep them together, all day. Then at dark, return the new one + one back to the quarantine coop. Do this two days.

Then the third day, let every one out in the back yard. Feed inside the run, watch how this goes down. If it in not a wreck, and it should not be, two to three, settles down, wait and see what they do at dark. More than likely, they will all coop up together, and you are golden.

A lot of dinking around, I know, but it works without a lot of trauma. Once in a great while, you will get a really mean hen that just won't let this go - at that time put her in the quarantine for a couple of day, letting the rest of the flock to solidify. Then add her back in, usually that works.

Mrs K

Thank you so much for these helpful tips @Mrs K, I’m going to try these out and hopefully will have good luck