What age can you introduce chicks to the adult chickens?

[dirtsaver]

It has been my experience that the mama will protect them. I have let them roam with the others at 2 weeks of age with no problem. If the other hens come over, mama puffs up like a feathered beachball on legs and let's em have it!!

I agree. In fact,after several years of having chickens raised from mail-order we finally had two girls go broody and let them set eggs. They were in a brooder coop inside the main run so all the hens could see them all day. At 3 weeks we started letting the mommas and chicks out with the rest of the flock and now the older hens are flat out scared of the mommas and chicks! Every time the hens got close to the chicks a momma seriously nailed the hen. After a week of them all being together all the flock gives the chicks plenty of room! Now if a chick wanders to close to a hen....the hen will give the chick a quick peck and things are ok.

As a side note,It's amazing how much faster chicks learn to be chickens when there's a momma hen teaching them. We have 15 chicks from Mt Healthy in another brooder coop that are about the same age but way behind in the learning curve! This may be the last year we order chicks...just start raising our own.

 

[lifepoet89]

When you say gone, do you mean dead? Or they ran?

 

[dunnowhat2use]

Maybe I can offer some help. Trying this for the first time, seems to be working great. When my chicks were about 8 weeks old I build them a new pen and a dog house for shelter attached to my established coop.

A couple days ago I put a fence in my already established coop just big enough for a small run for the chicks and I propped the bottom of their fence up so they could slip through.

Now today I rooted the fence that made up their run, and viol! Now if the hens harass the chicks too much they just run back into their old coupe.

So far so good, my roo is actually blocking the other hens from getting at the newbies, and the chicks are popping in and out of their old pen with minimum issue.

I have 1 roo 2 hens and 4 pullets. The queen in still in sitting on her nest we will see what happens later, but so far so good. Now hopefully the pullets will join my flock in the next day or 2.

Good luck, it's been scary but fun devising a plan

 

[dlgower]

Hi, I am new with chicks. I saw your question and I am in the same way.
My broody Lace Wing is on 5 eggs all have chicks in them. It's only the
5 day but I'm trying to plan on taking care of them after they hatch. Is mom going to be with them with the other chickens or do I need to separate them from the rest? I have 4 other chickens.

 

[dunnowhat2use]

In most cases you shouldn't have to separate them at all. Momma will keep all the other chickens and roos away from her babies.

 

[sccoterny]

Interesting info. My issue is i fenced off a penn inside my coop for 6 new juveniles. They are still quite small. No matter what i do one little black one keeps finding her way into the big girl coop. This little sucker is always ends up on the loose with the older hens. She hasnt been hurt yet, but i worry. Would i be better off to let her run. I have lots of space, a huge coop and run. She can hide under the ladder to the coop. Am i just being a nervous dad or should i move them to a safer spot until they get bigger and try again?

 

[Beekissed]

Interesting info. My issue is i fenced off a penn inside my coop for 6 new juveniles. They are still quite small. No matter what i do one little black one keeps finding her way into the big girl coop. This little sucker is always ends up on the loose with the older hens. She hasnt been hurt yet, but i worry. Would i be better off to let her run. I have lots of space, a huge coop and run. She can hide under the ladder to the coop. Am i just being a nervous dad or should i move them to a safer spot until they get bigger and try again?

IME, older birds will more readily accept a younger chick than they will an older juvenile. Let them all in with the big birds and leave them a way to retreat into their brooder pen if it makes you nervous. I've found, the sooner you can get those little ones eating alongside the big flock, the sooner they are accepted....they get to learn early on about socially acceptable behavior and the hens don't seem to be as harsh to them when they are really little. By the time they are old enough to represent food or roosting competition, they are already fully integrated with the flock and have formed their own little society within but separate from the older birds.

I've never had a chick harmed by earlier integration and I integrate all of mine around 2-3 wks be they with a mama hen or without one. I free range my flock, so that too may be one factor in the success of this practice.

 

[bramblefir]

Like Beekissed I move chicks out of the brooder at around 3 weeks old and into the main coop. I hang a heat lamp from a beam and setup a "training" roost underneath (2 cinder blocks with lumber scraps). The chicks typically stay at that end of the coop for several weeks. The adult birds totally ignore them and the juveniles form their own little subflock.

 

[alliechicken]

I have a big barn. My older hens are on one side and the new babies are on the other they are able to see another through the fence at all times. I usually introduce around 6 weeks haven't had any problems yet but I think that's mostly due to the fact that they can see each other all the times. But I always keep a watchful eye just in case

 

[JoCoKS]

Help! Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated. Thank you.
I have a different problem from the others here. I have 3 Rhode Island Reds that are 3 years old and 5 Salmon Faverolles that are 11 weeks old (I raised all of them) and smaller that have seen each other for over 2 months. They are all my pets. I split the Reds garden area in two so I could put the new chicks in the other section with a 2' chicken wire fence between them that has not always worked. My Faverolles go into panic mode when a Red flies into their area and run to their coop, I stopped that by clipping their wings I hope. The Faverolles fly into the Reds area and like they own the place till one of the Reds see them and they get back over the fence. When I get the nerve to let them in the garden together the Faverolles can fly and run away and if the Reds cannot fly they cannot get up on the roosts in the Salmon Faverolles new coop. The Reds coop is not been messed with. My family has always been city people (I really embarrassed myself on my first job by asking a guy I worked with that went home to see his parents on a farm if he slopped the chickens, I never thought I would ever here the end of that) so I knew nothing about chickens or chicken coops so I built one for the Reds that is 2'x4' with a 16 inches high inside. (I saw this design on the Internet) so my Reds do not know how to sit on a swing or the warming bar for their feet in the winter so this time I built a coop that is 4 feet high inside so I have several roosts and my baby girls are using them so if a Red comes in they can go up to safety. I have not installed the nesting boxes yet but maybe I should to give them another place above to hide. I plan to keep giving both flocks their desperate food dishes for dinner even after I get one happy flock.
I insulated all the exterior walls, floor and ceiling (built like a house with plywood exterior and interior) to keep my girls comfortable and included a small 5" fan to vent the coop. When I noticed my Cozy Coop Heater was melting the snow on my first coop I went back and insulated the roof and when I found out that chickens get cold thru their feet I insulated the floor. This new coop will be much easier to keep clean since I painted all the exterior and interior surfaces and again tiled the floor in neutral color. So far I have not had any sick chickens and I plan to keep it that way, I even power wash the sidewalk in their garden. I have a pair of old slippers I wear when I go to see my chickens to avoid dragging in germs but then I have let my old girls free range but not since my baby girls arrived. The regular chicken keepers probably think I am crazy but I was a professional architect all my life so I applied what I did to keep my girls happy and comfortable.
My Reds are still laying eggs like crazy even though they were suppose to reduce egg laying 30%. I have read that only a small part of their diet is suppose to be treats and my girls get a bunch of sunflower seeds everyday, in the summer they get corn cobs with some corn still on them cob (I tried giving both corn on the cob and they are not interested), tomatoes, bread (not dried out usually), etc. and when we mess up making a coffee cake my mother brought the recipe from Germany with her they act like they died and went to heaven. It has raisins, lemon peel, nutmeg, salt, flour, yeast and vanilla Zucker (vanilla sugar imported from Germany), it is just a fancy bread but I love it for breakfast because there is no mess and it keeps very well in the refrigerator for several weeks. Oh, their favorite thing is meal worms which I put in a little ball they can chase or right out of hands. I am now raising meal worms to give my girls that is driving my wife of 42 years up the wall. She is not an animal lover since her parents never let them even have a dog and she has had to put up with a dog for 42 years.