Replacing a lost pullet???????????

[CarolSMargerum]

I currently have five pullets, 13 weeks old. I recently lost one due to unknown reasons (no obvious signs of illness). She was the smallest and the lowest in the pecking order, and never really grew at the same rate as the others. I'm sure these were contributing factors. My issue is, I want to replace her. I have found someone that has a pullet about the same age (16 weeks) for sale. At this age, do I need to worry about issues with introducing her to my flock or can I just put her in and not worry about it? All of my birds are very docile... 2 buff orpingtons, 2 black austrolorps, and 1 silver laced wyondotte. The "new" girl would be a chocolate orpington. I'm not really in a rural area and don't really have a seperate coop/run area so not sure how to manage the process.

 

[Ol Grey Mare]

Hi and welcome. Age is not such an issue with introductions at this point - the concern would be from a health perspective which applies when bringing a new bird into your flock no matter the age. Some will quarantine (though even among those that do it is often not done in a way that is effective as they fail to keep the bird far enough away from the flock, etc and the risk of infection is still there) - others will just evaluate the health of the new bird, the health of other birds where it has come from , etc and make their best judgment call about whether or not they want to go through the quarantine process....they may well choose to skip quarantine and go straight to integration. That is a decision you will make for your own flock. If you look for integration/introduction discussions here you'll find a lot of different practices that folks use - find the one that fits best within your setup and your own chicken keeping philosophy.

 

[CarolSMargerum]

Thanks! I don't know that I have developed my own "chicken keeping philosophy" yet. I do know that if anything about the new bird and her current home/flock makes me feel the need to quarantine, then I'm not going to bring her home at all. That's not a risk I am willing to take with my current flock. I have only had my current chickens for about a month... and, although they all came from the same hatchery at 9 weeks of age, they were not kept in the same pens. I had no problems at all putting them all together the first day home. I was hoping, since the new bird is an orpington, and my current ones are all so docile, they would just accept her from day one without any real problems. Am I just dreaming? Is introducing a new bird, while they are all still pullets, really going to be that big of a deal?