When to introduce chickens to older rooster?

[Ludvig]

Hi! I currently have one 9 week old silverudds blue rooster. He is a nice boy, but he had no littermates so he is not used to other chickens.

A few weeks ago i purchased five silkie chicks. They are now 6 weeks old, so three weeks younger than my lone rooster.

They are all housed in the same coop, but are separated by a wall and chicken wire. The rooster spends most of his time outside, where the silkies dont have access yet, so they havent spent alot of time checking each other out.

When will it be okay to ‘open the gate’ and let them all be in the same enclosure?

 

[Theorrin]

i would let them socialize through the pen more BUT it really depends on the personalities. iva had some instantly take to new members and other that didnt. you can always try. monitor and if u see that it isnt really working out then separate

 

[Mrs. K]

Well, you don't have a rooster and hens - you have a cockerel and pullets and all are chicks. Which are semantics - but changes the advice. The advice will change as they get older.

So a big issue with chickens is size. I am making an assumption that these are your only chickens? Or do you have a flock somewhere else? When they are chicks it is really rather hard to imagine how big they will become. I looked up Silverudds Blues, and they are full size birds, if I read that right. Sometimes you can mix full size birds with bantams but not always. I think you will be surprised how big a full size rooster will be.

I do not have experience with silkie chicks - but they are tiny, and stay small. I would assume that the size difference is already very apparent. But they might work together for a while.

Good advice for integration is space - a lot of space, multiple feed bowls and a lot of clutter - ladders, pallets, mini walls, platforms - places where birds can get away from and out of sight.

Alway when a new poster starts to ask questions about issues with 6 birds, I am a bit worried they they have a pre-fab coop/run. I know they say that they will hold 6 birds, but they really won't when the birds are full size.

Another issue - is the belief that if birds are raised together they will be friends. While chickens are a flock society, they are not friends with everyone in the flock. They tolerate some birds and hate others...even if raised together. And they can be friends and then 2 weeks later change.

And the last issue is when the cockerel becomes sexually mature. He will do this around 12-16 weeks, some earlier, some later. If he is just with pullets - he tends to become a bully and can physically harm pullets at the worst, and at the best harass them no end. If you only have these birds, you most likely will need to separate him until the pullets begin to lay. As he is older than the pullets, this separation time is apt to be several months.

Which brings us back to the size issue. A lot of people are uncomfortable with a silkie being mated by a full size rooster. That will be your call.

So I think that you might be able to put them together, once you get the silkies outside, but I am unsure how long that will work.

Mrs K

 

[Tired old Rooster]

Which brings us back to the size issue. A lot of people are uncomfortable with a silkie being mated by a full size rooster.

Mrs K

Probably not as uncomfortable as the silkie will be, if the rooster is the size of my seven month old cockerel. Might end up with feathered pancakes laying around the yard.

 

[Mrs. K]

I agree with Tired Old Rooster.