We are introducing today and I'm freaking out...have I done the wrong

[007Dawn]

Well our rooster is one year old and he is fine and doesn't seem to care about what is going on.

We have five rhode Island reds that are 5 mo's.

Then we have 7 rir and a couple of others that are 4mo's. We raised these guys since 1 week old.

We expanded our coupe today in order to house up to 30 birds and we put them intogether and the 5 mo's olds are pecking the 4mo's olds heads and won't allow them in the coupe. The four mo's olds seem terrified and are trying to get out all together.

What do I do or is this normal?

 

[jbowyer01]

Dawn, when I added to my flock they were about the same age. I put them in the coop together at night when they were roosting and it seemed a little less traumatic. They did however bully each other for a couple of days before they found their pecking order. As long as they can get to food, water and safety I think they'll work it out but just make sure none of them severly hurt each other in the process.

 

[cmom]

There will be some pecking. I first integrated my pullets and hens during the day. First I let the pullets out in their yard for awhile then I let the hen out. I spread out plenty of scratch treats so they would fixate more on the treats than each other. The hens did chase the pullets somewhat but all is well now. I put a second pop door in my coop so that the pullets had another escape route.

 

[007Dawn]

I wound up removing them. The girls were just tearing the chicks up and I tried putting scratch down for them. The one was going for the eyes and the smaller ones were hanging on to the top of run! Maybe I will just run a second line down the middle and keep them seperate. That was really freaky.

 

[renemarie]

I just came in from trying to get my 7 week old RIR's to blend with the other 12 weekers. No luck here either!! I don't know how far to let things go and I panic! I have to do something because I have 15 more in the brooder in the house that will soon need to go to the "holding cell" in the coop! My RIR's will have to be moved out by then. I wish there was a really good way to do this.