Trouble introducing young chickens to coop

[aart]

but if there aren't enough hens for each rooster, they will try and mate the young pullets.

Even if there are 'enough'......
It always.....

.....depends on the behavior of the roosters

 

[halefamily_flock]

I have a smaller coop (approx 3 ft x 7 ft) next to my main coop, that I use for breeding and brooding. I put up flexible no-shock fencing in an area around the breeder/brooder coop when separating the bigs for breeding, or giving the littles a safe see-no-touch area to range next to the bigs. The past couple of times I've used the little coop for chicks, it's worked well (during warmer weather when the bigs are free ranging much further from the coop, most of the day). This time, when I took down the fence at around 4 weeks of age, the bigs would flood into the little coop as soon as I opened the pop door and hold the littles hostage inside while they ate all the baby food. I created a chick-sized insert for the pop door, so they would have a safe space to escape from the bigs. Here they are, hiding from their first snow, but you can imagine if there were a bunch of bigs poking around the entrance...

The only bigs able to fit through the chick door are my Hamburgs (4 hens), which isn't too bad even though they still intimidate the eleven 8-week-olds. They're pretty flighty, so if I walk inside the coop most of them will flee. A couple of the Hamburgs have been in the little coop when it's time to close for the night, and didn't leave right away, so I just locked them in with the littles. It's good practice, learning to get along.

 

[MissE]

I bought new chicks last April. They stayed in the brooder until they were six weeks old. Then they got moved into a tractor in the "chicken pasture" which is nothing more than the safe area for all the chickens to roam behind electric poultry netting.

They stayed in the tractor, where the other birds could walk by and see them, until 12 weeks. At 12 weeks, I ran a temporary fence separating the area around the tractor from the main pasture, but still within the main electric fence, and let the birds out of the tractor during the day.

At 16 weeks, I took the temporary fence down. There were no issues because the new chicks weren't alien invaders. They were furniture. Yes, they needed to determine pecking order, but they were allowed every where the older hens and roo went.

It took some time to get them to sleep in the coop, and I ended up locking them in there for a few days and removing the tractor, however I was able to avoid the territorial fighting. It just took time.

I ordered six RSL procudion pullets for mid April. They will be 18 weeks old. They will start in the tractor instead of the brooder box, and the tractor will be in a different area for quarantine time, but once quarantine is over, I plan to introduce them the same way.

 

[Tiffy316]

They're doing fine in the crate so far. The others seem to be adjusting nicely. They've got lots of places to hide. They just need to get acquainted with everybody. I'm gonna let them stay thrte for a week or two so everybody will be able to get along better. Thry have everything they need in the crate, including straw for warmth. Wish me luck. Hopefully everyone will be able to get along when I finally release them.