when and how to introduce chicks to larger chickens

[2DogsFarm]

Whew!
So glad to read about the pecking w/o blood.

My babies are 5wks now & I am keeping them separated from the hens both in the coop & outside.

Inside the coop I made a mini-coop that separates them with chicken wire. The chicks' water, grit & food are inside where only the babies can get to them.
The Big Girls can look in but not peck.

Outside I made a playpen from stakes & plastic netting that the chicks can spend the day in - with their food & water - and the freeranging hens can stroll by & investigate.

I had the babies out of this outside pen once while I was there to supervise and one of the hens did chase & peck, but no blood. Baby did squeal though

My plan is to put the babies in the fenced in henyard this weekend (temps supposed to be in the 70s). I can close the screened door to the coop and monitor to make sure they chicks don't find an escape route. The hens rarely bother to go into the yard now that they have my acreage to wander.
They go in the coop to lay & put themselves to bed at dusk, so the chicks could have the humongous (to them) yard to themselves.

I cut a mini-door into their mini-coop that is too small for the big,fat hens to get through.
I have been encouraging the chicks to use this door when I take them out of the coop to the outside pen.
I want them to figure out they can run back inside if the hens bother them.

I am hoping in a month or so the babies will be big enough to get along with the hens but still small enough to get into their Safe Place inside the coop.

Geesh!
Raising babies is hard

 

[gryeyes]

You're doing it exactly right, in my opinion.

I use a grow-out coop and temporary pen. Your method doesn't add new structures, unlike what I'm now calling the Chicken Compound in my back yard! (I have six different coops & coop-ish buildings.) I just take down the garden stakes and poultry fencing when it's time to integrate the youngsters into the whole flock. I put 'em in a grow-out coop/pen at 8 weeks, and about 10 or 12 weeks they get to join everybody else full time.

It's funny that all my "kids" continue to return to their grow-out coops at night. Hence the "Compound."

 

[2DogsFarm]

thanks, gryeyes

I try to think like a chicken and figure out what will work.
My hens were all 9wks when I got them and almost full-sized so I can't wait for these babies to catch up & get integrated!

and to think...
I originally was just going to get 2 hens....