Flock integration is a real PIA. It took almost three months to integrate my BR pullets into my flock of RIR's. The best advice I can offer is to follow @aart 's advice and be very patient. They'll get it together eventually. Good luck.
The problems with new introductions..
- Thread starter IlluminatedYak
- Start date
Hi. Welcome to the forum. Glad you joined but wish it were under better circumstances.
It sounds like you've done about everything you reasonably can. Two and then three weeks of look but don't touch, a big run with some clutter, separate feeding and water stations. You separated out some of the troublemakers for a while. How did the CQ's act with the chicks with the RIR's gone? Were they still vicious and hunting down the chicks? Sometimes when you remove the instigators the flock dynamics change.
It's pretty normal for my mature hens to outrank immature pullets in the pecking order and be willing to enforce those pecking order rights. But that's when the immature invade their personal space in the coop, in the run, or on the roosts. It usually doesn't take long at all for my immature ones to learn to avoid the adults and form a sub-flock until they mature enough to join the pecking order. With mine that's usually about when they start to lay.
What is somewhat unusual is that yours hunt down the juveniles when they try to avoid the adults. I've seen that behavior when they are settling down on the roosts at night, one hen left her normal area of the roosts to go attack some juveniles on the far end of the roosts. But that was just one hen, not several of then, only a few times, and they were fine during the day. Others on here have reported that kind of behavior with their flocks with hens of many different breeds. Most of those come when room is limited, you should have plenty of room. I don't know how big your coop actually is but since this happens in the run I don't think it is a space issue. And it sounds like it could be several of your adults, four out of six is unusual. But maybe just one or to are instigators. From my experience this should have gone a lot better for you than it has.
So what can you do? They seem to tolerate the other EE's. You could keep those pullets separated until half of them start to lay. They may be accepted into the flock then.
You can try isolating the RIR's and see how the CQ's react when you try to integrate. They may be OK, they may be part of the problem. At least that would give you some guidance with them. If things are peaceful you can try reintroducing the RIR's after at least a week. Two weeks wouldn't be bad. See how they behave.
Is it all the young ones they go after or only a select one or two? Are you sure they are all pullets and you don't have a cockerel in with them? Sometimes hens will be especially brutal to a young cockerel though I haven't seen that be this bad. I've also seen one chicken take an intense personal dislike toward another, bad enough to want to kill them. With that many hens involved it doesn't sound like that but who knows. Also, sometimes a flock will try to drive a sick, injured, or really weak member out of the flock. It's an instinctive survival technique, a weak chicken might attract predators to the flock. Again, if it is more than one or two of the young ones this is not it. I'm just trying to cover all the bases.
I try to solve these issues for the peace of my overall flock, not for one chicken. One reason I keep chickens is for meat so I have an easy solution for troublemakers. Maybe that's part of why I have a pretty peaceful flock. This doesn't mean you have to eat them, you can permanently isolate them, sell them, or give them away if, after reasonable efforts on your part, they are not reasonable. To me, there are too many good hens out there to put up with a bad one.
Good luck. It sounds like you haven't had much of that with these chickens. And once again,
It sounds like you've done about everything you reasonably can. Two and then three weeks of look but don't touch, a big run with some clutter, separate feeding and water stations. You separated out some of the troublemakers for a while. How did the CQ's act with the chicks with the RIR's gone? Were they still vicious and hunting down the chicks? Sometimes when you remove the instigators the flock dynamics change.
It's pretty normal for my mature hens to outrank immature pullets in the pecking order and be willing to enforce those pecking order rights. But that's when the immature invade their personal space in the coop, in the run, or on the roosts. It usually doesn't take long at all for my immature ones to learn to avoid the adults and form a sub-flock until they mature enough to join the pecking order. With mine that's usually about when they start to lay.
What is somewhat unusual is that yours hunt down the juveniles when they try to avoid the adults. I've seen that behavior when they are settling down on the roosts at night, one hen left her normal area of the roosts to go attack some juveniles on the far end of the roosts. But that was just one hen, not several of then, only a few times, and they were fine during the day. Others on here have reported that kind of behavior with their flocks with hens of many different breeds. Most of those come when room is limited, you should have plenty of room. I don't know how big your coop actually is but since this happens in the run I don't think it is a space issue. And it sounds like it could be several of your adults, four out of six is unusual. But maybe just one or to are instigators. From my experience this should have gone a lot better for you than it has.
So what can you do? They seem to tolerate the other EE's. You could keep those pullets separated until half of them start to lay. They may be accepted into the flock then.
You can try isolating the RIR's and see how the CQ's react when you try to integrate. They may be OK, they may be part of the problem. At least that would give you some guidance with them. If things are peaceful you can try reintroducing the RIR's after at least a week. Two weeks wouldn't be bad. See how they behave.
Is it all the young ones they go after or only a select one or two? Are you sure they are all pullets and you don't have a cockerel in with them? Sometimes hens will be especially brutal to a young cockerel though I haven't seen that be this bad. I've also seen one chicken take an intense personal dislike toward another, bad enough to want to kill them. With that many hens involved it doesn't sound like that but who knows. Also, sometimes a flock will try to drive a sick, injured, or really weak member out of the flock. It's an instinctive survival technique, a weak chicken might attract predators to the flock. Again, if it is more than one or two of the young ones this is not it. I'm just trying to cover all the bases.
I try to solve these issues for the peace of my overall flock, not for one chicken. One reason I keep chickens is for meat so I have an easy solution for troublemakers. Maybe that's part of why I have a pretty peaceful flock. This doesn't mean you have to eat them, you can permanently isolate them, sell them, or give them away if, after reasonable efforts on your part, they are not reasonable. To me, there are too many good hens out there to put up with a bad one.
Good luck. It sounds like you haven't had much of that with these chickens. And once again,
I just integrated my October babies using the see-no-touch method. Someone, I think maybe @aart, suggested opening my cage door just barely enough for the youngsters to get through but not the adults. This way the younguns get to choose to brave the open space but still run back inside for protection. I found I could prop the cage open the width of a brick. Then to keep it from being swung open I positioned 2 bricks outside the door, placed 2 more bricks on top of that cross hatched, then 2 more cross hatched on top. I needed them to be 3 bricks high just to reach the door and to be enough weight to keep it closed. After a week or so I moved food and water out of the cage so they would be forced to come out a bit to eat before running back inside. Adults had feed in the run but of course had a field day enjoying eating from the youngsters feeder. I planned to remove the food an water from the coop after about a week to force them to go into the run but on Christmas Day I found them running around exploring the run all on their own. The extra feeders came out of the coop into the run and never went back.
That being said, I also had a bullying problem last spring. My Easter Egger almost starved to death because of a bully not letting her out of the coop. I tried everything. I put the bully and her sister that mimicked her bullying in a cage on my porch for a month. No see-no touch. It didn’t work. I got peepers. They were successful in slowing the bully down but the stress was still there. I rehomed the bully sisters where they are in a flock of over 200. My poor EE has not laid an egg since Labor Day 2018! The thing I learned was that some breeds are more dominant while others are more docile. I now try to only have the docile type. EEs are more docile. RR are very dominant. You may want to rehome those. I prefer a peaceful flock to a highly productive flock. I also learned that when reading descriptions of a breeds temperament that friendly and docile usually means “toward humans” not “towards other flock members”. Dominant birds take advantage of docile birds.
And that being said also, birds are individuals. Some dominant birds are not bullys, some docile birds are. I have a SLW Iwas told would potentially be a bully. She’s the one who tried to protect her best friend, the EE, from being bullied.
For me time is too short to put up with bullying.
Good luck with your babies. I hope they can end up integrated without drastic measures.
That being said, I also had a bullying problem last spring. My Easter Egger almost starved to death because of a bully not letting her out of the coop. I tried everything. I put the bully and her sister that mimicked her bullying in a cage on my porch for a month. No see-no touch. It didn’t work. I got peepers. They were successful in slowing the bully down but the stress was still there. I rehomed the bully sisters where they are in a flock of over 200. My poor EE has not laid an egg since Labor Day 2018! The thing I learned was that some breeds are more dominant while others are more docile. I now try to only have the docile type. EEs are more docile. RR are very dominant. You may want to rehome those. I prefer a peaceful flock to a highly productive flock. I also learned that when reading descriptions of a breeds temperament that friendly and docile usually means “toward humans” not “towards other flock members”. Dominant birds take advantage of docile birds.
And that being said also, birds are individuals. Some dominant birds are not bullys, some docile birds are. I have a SLW Iwas told would potentially be a bully. She’s the one who tried to protect her best friend, the EE, from being bullied.
For me time is too short to put up with bullying.
Good luck with your babies. I hope they can end up integrated without drastic measures.
Last edited:
Yep, hard to do with older 'chicks' tho....why I now integrate at 4-6 weeks.
- Thread starter
- #15
IlluminatedYak
In the Brooder
These are all great ideas and thoughts. I'm really thankful everyone has taken the time to help me out, thank you so much!
We tried putting them in the coop one night after an (okayish) introduction since it was late, everyone was sleepy, and we had read on a few sites that the best way is to throw them in at night and be there in the morning to separate them if anything goes wrong.
The coop is segmented off into a top space where we have the nesting boxes, and the bottom where there are a few roosts. The Old Flock doesn't like to go downstairs at all - they love being at the top where they snuggle together in a big puddle and ignore all the roosts I put up! When we put the New Flock at the bottom of the coop, the girl's abandoned their upstairs (except the EEs, they don't care about anything) to constantly needle the New Flock even though they weren't even on the roosting bars and were just sitting downstairs. The CQs and the RIR's both would take turns.
@Ridgerunner It's one of the lower RIR's, and both the Cinnamon Queens that chase the pullets around. (They're all girls, no crowing, no spurs, no feather laying that I've seen. And they've been in our house since October!) When we separated the 2 RIRs out for 3 days, the head chick came back much better tempered, but the lower ordered one has been kind of a mess as she gets put back in. The CQs and RIRs are very sweet to people, but they've always been buttheads to each other. The head RIR liked mounting and pulling feathers, and the CQ's picked it up when they have their squabbles, which is rare.
As a group they've all been at least pleasant with each other, but I also know they didn't really have a 'mom' chicken to teach them how to act in a group.
Making this post I've felt guilty because I bought them and raised them and feel responsible for them, and selling them off feels like I'm giving up on them - but if they're like this every time we try to have more chickens come in, I think it's fair to everybody that they go to a nice home where they can crab at each other and not have newbies bothering them all the time.
Thank you again everyone! I appreciate all this information so much! I'm getting a pallet delivered and a few more things to mess up the run. I'm going to try integrating the EE's with each other since they seem very okay with each other and I'll move out the CQs and RIRs for some needed vacation time. I'll keep checking back in if anyone has more information.
We tried putting them in the coop one night after an (okayish) introduction since it was late, everyone was sleepy, and we had read on a few sites that the best way is to throw them in at night and be there in the morning to separate them if anything goes wrong.
The coop is segmented off into a top space where we have the nesting boxes, and the bottom where there are a few roosts. The Old Flock doesn't like to go downstairs at all - they love being at the top where they snuggle together in a big puddle and ignore all the roosts I put up! When we put the New Flock at the bottom of the coop, the girl's abandoned their upstairs (except the EEs, they don't care about anything) to constantly needle the New Flock even though they weren't even on the roosting bars and were just sitting downstairs. The CQs and the RIR's both would take turns.
@Ridgerunner It's one of the lower RIR's, and both the Cinnamon Queens that chase the pullets around. (They're all girls, no crowing, no spurs, no feather laying that I've seen. And they've been in our house since October!) When we separated the 2 RIRs out for 3 days, the head chick came back much better tempered, but the lower ordered one has been kind of a mess as she gets put back in. The CQs and RIRs are very sweet to people, but they've always been buttheads to each other. The head RIR liked mounting and pulling feathers, and the CQ's picked it up when they have their squabbles, which is rare.
As a group they've all been at least pleasant with each other, but I also know they didn't really have a 'mom' chicken to teach them how to act in a group.
Making this post I've felt guilty because I bought them and raised them and feel responsible for them, and selling them off feels like I'm giving up on them - but if they're like this every time we try to have more chickens come in, I think it's fair to everybody that they go to a nice home where they can crab at each other and not have newbies bothering them all the time.
Thank you again everyone! I appreciate all this information so much! I'm getting a pallet delivered and a few more things to mess up the run. I'm going to try integrating the EE's with each other since they seem very okay with each other and I'll move out the CQs and RIRs for some needed vacation time. I'll keep checking back in if anyone has more information.
Can you post some pics of the coop and run?
Ditto. It might be a matter of reorganizing the coop “furniture”. Pictures would help.
- Thread starter
- #18
IlluminatedYak
In the Brooder
Sorry about the mess! It's been so muddy these past few days I've been trying to pick stuff up to not get rained/snowed on. Also we normally use pine shavings for bedding, but by the time we were cleaning stuff out we ran out and had to improv some straw for the day! I've moved some things around, and by Friday I should have a few pallets to lean up against the wall.
Edit: We also have another roosting bar, we just take it down normally when we clean things out!
Edit: We also have another roosting bar, we just take it down normally when we clean things out!
Pffft!! Never worry about that.
Run looks great...lots of space to add some 'clutter'.
Couldn't really see this^^ in the pic....but nests should be lower than roosts.
How big, in feet by feet, is the coop?
12" of roost length per bird work pretty good.
Separate roosts for new old can really help.
Maybe you said and I missed it, but....
Where in this world are you located?
Climate, and time of year, is almost always a factor.
Please add your general geographical location to your profile.
It's easy to do, (laptop version shown), then it's always there!
- Thread starter
- #20
IlluminatedYak
In the Brooder
Pffft!! Never worry about that.
Run looks great...lots of space to add some 'clutter'.
Couldn't really see this^^ in the pic....but nests should be lower than roosts.
How big, in feet by feet, is the coop?
12" of roost length per bird work pretty good.
Separate roosts for new old can really help.
Maybe you said and I missed it, but....
Where in this world are you located?
Climate, and time of year, is almost always a factor.
Please add your general geographical location to your profile.
It's easy to do, (laptop version shown), then it's always there!
View attachment 1992866
Yeah, I've been thinking about moving the nesting box down and attaching it to the back wall of the coop with some nice screws and getting the top more fluffed up, but I've been out sick for 6 months with sciatica, which is finally going away, yay! I can do things for my ladies.
The coop is 6 1/2 feet tall, 8 feet long, 5 1/2 feet wide. The top rack where the older birds hang out is about 4 and 1/2 feet long through the shed. They have two windows to vent out and look out of. They sit on the roosts during the rainy days, but they mostly don't fight over the two roosts we have.
And I'll definitely set that. I live in Northern Illinois. It's been pretty weird these past few weeks as Illinois usually is. Last week was high 50s, nice sunny days. This week we've gotten into the 10s with windchill and a little bit of light snow. Yesterday and today has been 40s-50s, so all the snow is mud now.
It's why we've felt a little pressure to get the new flock integrated in with the old flock. Our temporary coop doesn't fit into the run where it's safe, and we used a new dog kennel wrapped up in tarp with some perches for their temporary housing for the "see not touch" portion - but it's getting too cold I think for just a tarp-kennel. We moved them back into a wooden chicken coop we bought from Tractor Supply that fits them nicely, but sadly it just doesn't fit in the run through the door, and the top is covered in bird netting reinforced with some fishing line since we have a huge hawk problem in our area.
Thank you so much for going through everything, I really appreciate the time you're taking to help my feathery family!
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