Reuniting 6 week old chicks

[howiethenurse]

Hi!

I'm new to BackYard Chickens (and to being a chicken momma). We have 4 chicks from a friend (not sure if they're boys or girls yet) and have just received a 5th back from another friend (Butterfly). All the chicks are the same age (around 6 weeks old). Butterfly was hatched and has been at my friends house for the past 6 weeks with no other chickens. She's ++ socialized to humans but seems to not know she's a chicken.

We just moved our 4 chicks out to our outdoor coop from our garage (we have an Omlet Cube) so they're still getting used to their new home (have been out three nights now).

Wondering how I should go about introducing Butterfly to our little crew. We tried putting her in with the other chicks today and she seemed terrified! There was a little aggression from one of our bigger chicks. Butterfly is currently in a box in our garage.

Help!!

 

[Mrs. K]

You might add a single chick to her. So that is one on one in the garage. Not 4 against 1. Wait two days, add another to the garage, wait 24 hours, then pull the two in the coop, put the 3 in the coop set up, keeping the two from the coop to the garage. After dark put everyone together in the coop.

This seems a bit involved, but it should work, it keeps it from being one against 4, then it becomes 3 against 2. By pulling the remaining 2 and putting the three in the final coop - that lets them explore the set up and get acclaimated without a fight. Then after dark, put the last two in there, and it should be golden.

Mrs K

 

[Mrs. K]

Looking at omlet coops - I am very worried that they may not be big enough for 5 full size birds. Can you measure and take a picture? What seems big for chicks is rapidly going to get too small.

 

[howiethenurse]

Description says 6-8 medium birds or 4-5 larger breed.

 

[Pghelp]

How many nesting boxes and how spacious are the roosts? That does look small for that many birds. Okay for juveniles but they grow fast and overcrowding is a sure way to cause aggression.

 

[Mrs. K]

I so hate to rain on your parade. These prefab things are darling, but grossly overstate the number of birds that will get along in them. Overcrowding can cause very ugly behaviors.

Where are you? Maybe in the south this will work,(but there I would worry about overheating), but a general rule of thumb is 4 square feet per bird in a coop. 1 linear foot of roosting space, and 10 square feet per bird for the run.

The coop - house where they sleep you basically have 9 square feet enough for 2 full size birds. I live in South Dakota, and come December, my birds will spend 14-16 hours on the roost. They go in at 4:00 until 7-7;30 am. That is a long time to be too crowded.

Now if you live in the far south, where you do not really get winter, where your winter days are longer... it is still cramped, but you might get away with it.

For the five birds you are getting you need about 20 square feet for just the coop. so 4 feet by 5 feet. If you are where it gets real cold, you need about 20 inches ABOVE their heads to prevent frost bite.

When they calculate the measurements, they include the run as part of the coop. In the real world, that won't work, and the run is not big enough for 5 birds.

This coop will really be much better for 3 birds. What seems to be more than enough room for chicks, rapidly gets to be not enough room for full grown birds.

If you start having fighting or excessive pecking on a bird, they are telling you they need more space, and are trying to kill a bird to get it. Crowded chickens can be heartless.

Mrs K

 

[howiethenurse]

There's almost zero chance that we will keep all 5 chickens since we're not sure if they're male or female yet. We're on the edge of town and are unable to keep roosters.

 

[Mrs. K]

Oh good, five full grown birds would be a good recipe for a disaster in that set up.

 

[aart]

since we're not sure if they're male or female yet.

At 6 weeks it should be apparent(how old are the first 4 chicks?
....post some pics of them showing their combs.