Various age issues

[whispurr]

I have two 7 month old chickens, one male, one female. I have seven 3 month old chickens, one is supposed to be male. I have four unknown sex 2 week old chicks. So the questions: 1) Is it too late to add another set of day old chicks with the 2 week olds? 2) And this one's a bit more complex. I raised my older chicks (we can them teenagers) in a cage perfectly visible to the older chickens. When we let them out, the hen established that she's the boss and the rooster was kind of indifferent. Now they travel in two groups, older 2 chickens in one set, and the other 7 on their own. Will they ever integrate? 3) The last bag of layer food was pellets. The new bag is crumbles like chick food. Is that okay? And since they're the same texture, can I give everyone chick crumbles? Due to a Chewy error, I have 6- 30# bags of chick food and only 4 chicks!

 

[Brooks_]

1) Is it too late to add another set of day old chicks with the 2 week olds?

I would say yes, too late. The size difference is just too much.

2) And this one's a bit more complex. I raised my older chicks (we can them teenagers) in a cage perfectly visible to the older chickens. When we let them out, the hen established that she's the boss and the rooster was kind of indifferent. Now they travel in two groups, older 2 chickens in one set, and the other 7 on their own. Will they ever integrate?

Yes, they will integrate.

3) The last bag of layer food was pellets. The new bag is crumbles like chick food. Is that okay? And since they're the same texture, can I give everyone chick crumbles? Due to a Chewy error, I have 6- 30# bags of chick food and only 4 chicks!

Yes, I recommend starter/grower/all flock crumbles with oyster shell on the side for active layers to be the easiest method for mixed age/gender flocks.

 

[Ridgerunner]

1) Is it too late to add another set of day old chicks with the 2 week olds?

You never know what will happen. It may work great or you may wind up with dead chicks. There is no way to know ahead of time what will happen. If you decide to try it, be prepared to raise them by themselves if you have to.

2) the hen established that she's the boss and the rooster was kind of indifferent. Now they travel in two groups, older 2 chickens in one set, and the other 7 on their own. Will they ever integrate?

Sounds like mine do it. There are always exceptions to anything, we don't always get the same results, but it is totally normal for mine to travel in separate flocks until the younger pullets start to lay. That's generally when the old girls let them into their society.

3) The last bag of layer food was pellets. The new bag is crumbles like chick food. Is that okay? And since they're the same texture, can I give everyone chick crumbles? Due to a Chewy error, I have 6- 30# bags of chick food and only 4 chicks!

I agree. Offer that to all of them and offer oyster shell on the side for any that need it for egg shells. Many of us never feed Layer, we feed a Grower, Flock Raiser, All Flock or something like that and offer supplemental calcium on the side.

 

[UncleDougsChickens]

I agree with with everyone said but I'll add my own experience for question 1. In my latest generation I had 7 chickens; 6 normal chickens and one that was almost 1/3rd the size of them, it was pretty weak, small, frail, whatever you cant to call it. Despite the size difference, its sisters never picked on it, not once. Your results may vary of course, but at their age range I don't think it matters as much. A concern you might have is the 2-4 week olds jumping and landing on the smaller ones. This happened to the runt of the group and it didn't affect it at all. That runt turned out to be a rooster btw