Ugh! Integrating?!

[Chipmunk Chicks]

The new girls are about 18 mos and I think it's too small in there. They just seem cramped. And at night, the tallest perch is fine to fit them both onto, but in the mornings, they seem to be apprehensive about jumping down. It's only 18" high. The little coop is 37.5" wide X 40" long X 37 high (at the peak). Nesting boxes make it even wider so that's just measurements of the roosting area.

That's perfectly fine for two chickens.

 

[Chipmunk Chicks]

If you want to add stuff right now, here are a few possibilities:

Cardboard boxes (until they get squashed or wet), more pallets, tree stumps or sections of log, bales of hay or straw, sawhorses, cinder blocks, large stones or piles of bricks (be sure they won't fall over), old tables or chairs (only if you never need them clean again).

Basically, as long as it won't hurt the chickens, and you don't mind having chicken poop on it, anything can work. Give serious thought to anything you would otherwise throw in the trash-- it might do some good in the chicken run first, and you can throw it away after you have the nicer things you want to build.

I love this advice! I had been thinking a tote for them to snuggle in and get out of sight, but it's so true, cardboard will do the trick until it's outlived its usefulness. I'm sure DH has a couple pallets lying around that I could use too. Just about anything will work, so long as it's safe. My chickens do not have Instagram or Pinterest!

 

[Atchurch]

That is definitely on the small side, but for just two hens I think it is big enough while you do the integration slowly, without needing to rush.

I might worry if you have weather that forces them to stay in the coop during the daytime, but this is not winter, and I see that part of their run is under their coop (shaded from the sun, and covered to keep rain off.) So they will probably be able to go out each day, which means they aren't too squished.

For being apprehensive about jumping down from the perch: you can just let them deal with it, or you can lower the perch.

It's made in China and that's the only fixed perch inside, and of course, the highest so they love it. It's not conducive to making changes, really. But I just now took the "ground floor" ones out because they don't really serve a purpose. They can just walk straight into the nesting boxes. But now they can just jump down, onto the litter without those boards running across the floor. Those were always kinda dumb anyways. Even when the babies were in there before we got the big run finished, none of them ever used those. I feel better about them getting down now.

 

[Atchurch]

I love this advice! I had been thinking a tote for them to snuggle in and get out of sight, but it's so true, cardboard will do the trick until it's outlived its usefulness. I'm sure DH has a couple pallets lying around that I could use too. Just about anything will work, so long as it's safe. My chickens do not have Instagram or Pinterest!

I forgot to mention that my husband wants his pallet back. Lol. He can't have it until the roosting hut is built, though.

 

[Atchurch]

It's made in China and that's the only fixed perch inside, and of course, the highest so they love it. It's not conducive to making changes, really. But I just now took the "ground floor" ones out because they don't really serve a purpose. They can just walk straight into the nesting boxes. But now they can just jump down, onto the litter without those boards running across the floor. Those were always kinda dumb anyways. Even when the babies were in there before we got the big run finished, none of them ever used those. I feel better about them getting down now.

Oh yeah, plus there's all mature trees over all of that so it doesn't really get direct sun in the heat of the day.

 

[rosemarythyme]

Agree that more clutter is needed. It never needs to be anything fancy, just scour your yard for junk - overturned chairs, empty planter pots, an old ladder. My run clutter is just dragged in from random places in the yard, I don't even know what some of it was supposed to be in the first place.

Plan on 1-2 weeks of see but no touch before you let them mingle with supervision.

 

[BigBlueHen53]

Is there any way you can put a fence, even a temporary one, around the little coop the older hens are in? That way the chickens can all see, hear and smell each other without physical contact and get used to each other. I do this for about two weeks and then open the gate that separates them and bingo, integration complete with no issues.

 

[BigBlueHen53]

Forgot to say that this would also give your older hens a larger area to exercise in, like a little mini-run of their own.

 

[BigBlueHen53]

Oh wait. The little coop is not right next to the big run, is it? This would only work if the two sets of chickens were side by side, with only a fence between them.

 

[Chipmunk Chicks]

Oh wait. The little coop is not right next to the big run, is it? This would only work if the two sets of chickens were side by side, with only a fence between them.

It's hard to tell from the pic, there looks like a space where that metal garbage can is, and then a smaller pen, and then the big one.