whats the best way to do this?

[Mogli]

i was thinking about adding 3 more chickens to my flock of 5 hens that i have now but ive heard people on the site say u gota quarintine ur new birds for at least a month but what if u wanna buy pullets do u gota quarintine them too? or can u just throw,em in with with ur original flock? will older hens get along with new pullets if u bring a few home or will the hens tear into the pullets? does it matter how old the pullets are? do pullets carry deasies too or no plus can pullets eat layer mash feed like my hen

 

[Judy]

Quarantine is for both males and females. It's not just the month; you should then put one of yours with the new group and wait a couple of weeks. This is to find out whether the new ones are carriers of a disease but not having symptoms. I was just reading about a person who did the month quarantine then put the new birds with his old flock, and everyone got sick. He ended up destroying a whole lot of birds and leaving his coops empty for a year.

You should really not feed layer to chickens that are not laying; the calcium can damage organs. An alternative is to feed something like grower or flock raiser to everyone and offer oyster shell on the side. Oyster shell only costs a few bucks a bag; mine are still working on a small bag I bought last year.