Relocating chickens to a friend's while out of town?

[ekross]

Hi friends!

We have three barred rocks and one brahma. They're about a year old now, were hatched and raised by a friend, and have been with us for 5 months.

We are going out of town next week and will be gone for almost a whole month. We have a housesitter, but she'll be gone 12-6 most days and I'm worried she won't get the gravity of putting the chickens in the coop before dark, and not sure how reliable she will be.

Our alternative is that the friends who gifted us the chickens said we can bring them over to stay at their place while we're out of town. She still has 12 chickens in the flock that ours were born and raised with.

I suspect our chickens would be safer at our friends' house. We live in the woods, the chickens have a mostly enclosed run and a fully enclosed coop, and free range when we're home and outside. We've lost two roosters to dogs and one to a hawk/owl.

If we put them at our friend's house while we're away, will it stress them out to move and have their social order disrupted? What about the risk of getting sickness or pests from the other flock? How does that compare to potentially having them get eaten by predators?

Their people are great and take good care of the chickens, free ranging in an enclosed yard in a less wild place than our house, home all day.

What would you choose?

Thanks!

 

[cherrynberry]

Hi friends!

We have three barred rocks and one brahma. They're about a year old now, were hatched and raised by a friend, and have been with us for 5 months.

We are going out of town next week and will be gone for almost a whole month. We have a housesitter, but she'll be gone 12-6 most days and I'm worried she won't get the gravity of putting the chickens in the coop before dark, and not sure how reliable she will be.

Our alternative is that the friends who gifted us the chickens said we can bring them over to stay at their place while we're out of town. She still has 12 chickens in the flock that ours were born and raised with.

I suspect our chickens would be safer at our friends' house. We live in the woods, the chickens have a mostly enclosed run and a fully enclosed coop, and free range when we're home and outside. We've lost two roosters to dogs and one to a hawk/owl.

If we put them at our friend's house while we're away, will it stress them out to move and have their social order disrupted? What about the risk of getting sickness or pests from the other flock? How does that compare to potentially having them get eaten by predators?

Their people are great and take good care of the chickens, free ranging in an enclosed yard in a less wild place than our house, home all day.

What would you choose?

Thanks!

I personally would not put them at the friends house...it takes a while to integrate chickens...but if you are leaving for a month...I personally would leave them in the coop with food/water. The sitter can come by, refill their feed/water as well as let them out to play for a few hours everyday. How large is your coop?

if that’s not a choice, you may HAVE to relocate to your friends house...again, it’s risky, but since you got them from her anyways, I would say you trust her quite a lot....it’s mainly the pecking order I would be worried about...especially if she has roosters...

 

[ekross]

I personally would not put them at the friends house...it takes a while to integrate chickens...but if you are leaving for a month...I personally would leave them in the coop with food/water. The sitter can come by, refill their feed/water as well as let them out to play for a few hours everyday. How large is your coop?

if that’s not a choice, you may HAVE to relocate to your friends house...again, it’s risky, but since you got them from her anyways, I would say you trust her quite a lot....it’s mainly the pecking order I would be worried about...especially if she has roosters...

Thank you!! The friends do not have roosters - thank god! Coop is too small to leave them in there. We are expanding the run tomorrow, so maybe we can leave them in that, I just know they will hate to be cooped up! How large do you think the run would have to be to be sufficient for 4 chickens (who are used to free-ranging?)

The sitter works 6 days a week, sometimes from 10-3, sometimes 12-6. So she wouldn't be around to run out and defend the chickens if something attacked. Once I heard them squawking and ran out to chase a hawk off one of my babies! So I'm wary of something like that happening if we do keep them at home...

 

[cherrynberry]

Thank you!! The friends do not have roosters - thank god! Coop is too small to leave them in there. We are expanding the run tomorrow, so maybe we can leave them in that, I just know they will hate to be cooped up! How large do you think the run would have to be to be sufficient for 4 chickens (who are used to free-ranging?)

The sitter works 6 days a week, sometimes from 10-3, sometimes 12-6. So she wouldn't be around to run out and defend the chickens if something attacked. Once I heard them squawking and ran out to chase a hawk off one of my babies! So I'm wary of something like that happening if we do keep them at home...

Your setup sounds a bit like mine, however we don’t have a run and have a larger coop. The run would have to be about 35 square feet. (3 standard and 1 bantam) i recommend actually netting the top of the run. So hawks are scared to swoop down...you can also use string...good luck!!

 

[cherrynberry]

Thank you!! The friends do not have roosters - thank god! Coop is too small to leave them in there. We are expanding the run tomorrow, so maybe we can leave them in that, I just know they will hate to be cooped up! How large do you think the run would have to be to be sufficient for 4 chickens (who are used to free-ranging?)

The sitter works 6 days a week, sometimes from 10-3, sometimes 12-6. So she wouldn't be around to run out and defend the chickens if something attacked. Once I heard them squawking and ran out to chase a hawk off one of my babies! So I'm wary of something like that happening if we do keep them at home...

How many hens does the friend have?
Oh and also I read wrong, for 4 standard birds you need at least 40square feet...

 

[Serama77]

Hello. An interesting question. I wondered if you have considered the possibility of getting a couple of outdoors coop cameras so that you could check the video feed to see if your flock are safely in their coop at night, and have their water etc topped up etc while you are away? Even so, with the known predator issues in your area, it does seem risky to leave them with someone who might not know how vigilant they may need to be. I've no experience with this situation myself, and would also be nervous about leaving my birds with someone who isn't experienced with keeping chickens.
My preferred option might be to leave them with the experienced chicken keeper friends, but just throwing new chickens into another flock will be very likely to stress out your birds, and maybe theirs too. It's recommended to do gentler introductions when introducing chickens to a new flock, e.g separated by a fence but where both flocks can see each other for at least several days. Do your friends have the means to keep the two flocks entirely separated/fenced off from each other? This might be the easiset option for both of your flocks.
And with the biosecurity issue, I would also worry that if my friends' birds became sick, and this coincided with my chickens visiting, how would my friends feel about that?
If my friends could keep our flocks separated that would be my prefered option. I'm not sure if my answer helps, but hopefully gives some things to consider. Best of luck with it! I hope it works out.

 

[Serama77]

Thank you!! The friends do not have roosters - thank god!

Do you have a rooster? If your friends do not have roosters, then your rooster should help protect your smaller flock as they integrate with the larger flock. However I would be nervous about mixing flocks without giving time for a gentle introduction. I had a hen killed by another hen once even after a week long 'gentle introduction' and that was quite upsetting. That's worst case scenario of course!

 

[rosemarythyme]

We are going out of town next week and will be gone for almost a whole month. We have a housesitter, but she'll be gone 12-6 most days and I'm worried she won't get the gravity of putting the chickens in the coop before dark, and not sure how reliable she will be.

Wish you had more time to work with. An auto door would be my recommendation but you probably won't be able to get it and set it up and test it.

Still, I think it'd be better to leave them at home due to biosecurity and stress issues, assuming you have a run big enough to contain them (how big is it?), but if you can get some cameras on them that would be ideal. That way if you see anything wrong you can either call the pet sitter or your friends to fix the problem.

 

[3KillerBs]

Does your friend have a separate coop to put them in?

If not, I wouldn't move them over there because it would take a whole month just to do a proper integration.

Could that friend come over specifically to care for the chickens?