OK...so the time has come. My husband and I are ready to start a new flock. I have some questions though on how to go about doing it. Ideally, I would like to keep our girls around for eggs for as long as possible until the young ones are ready to lay but I have fears about integrating the two flocks together. When we first started our current flock, we integrated 5 easter eggers late and they never really acclimated well. I wanted the easter eggers due to their sweet nature and they've always just been skittish since we integrated them. While I do view our girls as food, I do want them to be friendly and handleable up till the end. I currently have 16 girls and I'm looking to start a new flock of 15 layers and 10 meaties. So what is the best way to go about re-flocking? It's really important to me to have friendly birds, so do I just cull them all and go without fresh eggs until the new ones start laying or is there a way to do this peacefully? Do I cull all but 5 or so to get us through the summer and try to keep those 5 separated? Any suggestions?
