When can I add them into the existing flock?

[Kaitie09]

I have 2, 6 week old EE pullets that right now are living in the grow-out pen. They have a ton of room in there, but I have a broody that is due to hatch in the next 2-3 weeks and that is the only place we can put her. Will the babies be old enough at 9-10 weeks to go into the big flock? They have never met each other, but I am working on trying to build a little playpen I can add into the big run. Another problem I have is the ducks. They live in the with chickens and have their own kiddie pool. The adults are big enough that the water only comes up to their knees, but I'm afraid that the pullets will get in there and drown. There are bricks in there that they could get onto if they fall in.

 

[franklinchickens]

We integrated our 6 week olds with our existing flock of 4-1year old hens pretty easily. We built a temporary holding area adjacent to where the 'big girls' were for about a week bringing them back in at night. Then we mixed them, supervised, for a few days, still bringing them in at night. But then one night, they all hopped up into the coop and settled in. That was it. One of our hens has been a bit aggressive towards them but it has gotten better as the little girls get bigger. They do stay in their own little flock apart from the big girls. However - they do have the whole backyard to roam in so they can easily stay away from each other.

 

[Kaitie09]

They just seem so tiny compared to the others. I only have one hen that may be a little aggressive, but my roo thinks all little creatures are his babies. I added my 2 Mallards at 6 weeks, but they were almost as big as the smallest hen. There was no problem adding those two, and now they think they are chickens.

 

[franklinchickens]

Mine did too but it seemed to go well for us. We don't have any roosters - just the 4 hens. We just brought in 2 bigger but young hens that we took in from someone who had to give them up and are having a lot more trouble with this integration than we did with the chicks. But those we just stuck in in the middle of the night - with the chicks we did the slow supervised intro. Huge size difference but it went ok. Good luck!