When can I incorporate them?

[rancher hicks]

I puchased 4 chicks age 4-5 wks. CM's 1roo and 3 hens. I only have one run put up 20 hens 19wks and 1 roo friz bantam. He obviously is having field day. Anyhow when can I put them together.
I have 5 new Delawares 1yr at least but they are going to have to be quarantined for a while.
I saw the chicks home so I know they're clean. In fact you would have loved this place. Free range,beautiful Golden retriever in the yard w/ the chicks, chickens all ages running around. OMG.
The kid (to me, anybody younger than me is a kid) get's the can of scratch and chicks, chickens come running from everywhere.
Anyhow I got chicks this age cause they was cheaper and I could get more, LOL. Really I just figured the transition would be easier the younger they were. They already were running outside. These guys might be older cause their fully feathered.

So when can I put them 4 or 5wks olds with the big girls and "cowboy curtis".

 

[Mahlzeit]

Well the chicks you just got should be receiving a different feed than your others. I feed mine chick starter until about 8-10weeks then they go onto chick grower until about 18 weeks when they can then move on to layer pellets. I like to keep mine separate until they are all on the same feed. Hope this helps.

 

[cmom]

I do the same thing as Mahlzeit. I wait until they are closer in size. I wouldn't worry so much about the 1 yr olds but would worry more about the 4/5 week old birds. Initially I let mine start out free ranging together with plenty of treats out to occupy them so they fixate more on the treats than each other.

 

[rancher hicks]

Do you have a seperate coop for "new" chicks? Where do you keep them? These 4 were free range but I can't do that here.