The hens and chicks know each other well, but...HELP!!

[JAZsMom]

Long story short, our 6 chicks and 2 hens knew each other from our small 1/2 acre yard and the day came when they HAD to share a coop. The hens are 6 months? and the chicks were 4ish weeks. It went far too well for 2 nights. The 3rd night we had my birthday party, all were stressed due to kids and adults holding/chasing/etc. Didnt help that my brother and I hung by the fire until sunrise...20 feet from the coop. Well, the babes were attacked. 4 were injured, 1 pretty badly, but I managed to nurse her back to health.

After that I separated them...made the hens sleep in the run and chicks in the coop. The chicks are now 9 weeks. They all know each other well. Our 'beta' hen gets rather bossy with them around food, etc...insuring her 2nd place in the pecking order. I do foresee issues, as one of my chicks has been demanding alpha status since day 1 (so funny to watch!). All 8 of them free range for 12 hours a day on our little 1/2 acre yard. I feed them in the general area, but as of today Im feeding from one container- 1. feeding fermented 2. Doesnt matter if I feed the hens, theyre only going to eat the chicks food and no one will touch the hen feed.

Now that Ive babbled on...how do I deal with the sleeping situation? I'd love to have both in there..free to sleep outside or inside? Im so scared to put them together again...I know Im supposed to wait another month or two, but that's not really gonna work! HELP!

 

[Julie1077]

I feel your pain, my babies are 9 weeks old now and the older girls that they are "living" with are 15 weeks. I put them together when the babies were 4 weeks old and originally kept them with the big girls but inside a small cage in the coop so they could not be harmed. I watched them at bedtime armed with a squirt bottle in case one of the big girls wanted to act bad. Eventually I decided they were ready to integrate, having no idea how really dangerous it could be to the babies. Thankfully we have been lucky with only a few scratches to the smallest one, as far as physical damage goes. Emotionally the babies are jumpy and nervous anytime the big girls are near, they run to be looking for protection on a regular basis. I ended up buying a temporary coop for the babies to give them a break, but they hated it and wanted back in the big girl coop. So we are stuck with two flocks who are not integrating, complete with the mean girls and the poor babies. From what I've read later, I found out that I was supposed to wait until they were all the same size, so I missed that one. But on a brighter note, I also read that the problem should improve when they all start laying. Good luck.

 

[centrarchid]

First you do not have hens yet and that is very relavent to approach taken. Place a box next to juveniles roosting in wrong place and encourage them to move into it for night. I suggest using a pet carrier for this purpose. The box does two things; 1) enables protecting juveniles overnight and 2) can be imprinted on by chicks enabling a gradual moving to another location.


Further proceeding needs a better description of intended roost area with pictures.

 

[aart]

Any female chicken under one year of age is usually referred to as a pullet, older than one year it's called a hen.


How big is your coop and run(feet by feet)?
How much roost space (feet long x material size) in the coop?
Is coop open to run 24/7?

Pics of coop and run would make it much easier to assess situation and offer viable solutions.