When to Introduce new chicks to the flock

[KrysPel]

Hi guys! I've been doing some research and somewhat have an idea of how old I should introduce my new batch of chicks to the flock, but I'd love for you guys's opinions/experiences, just for a little input.

Here's my case, I already have 6 Golden Sex-Link Pullets, they are around 6 weeks old, from my guess anyway, and they are very feathered aside from a small scruff on their neck and under their wing. Well I couldn't help myself when I went to the tractor supply, and ended up getting 9 more chicks, maybe a week or so old (not quite sure about them). I didn't plan on introducing them until the new chicks are at least a week or so past feathering out some.

I'll include some pictures of them so you guys can kind of gauge at their age/size!


Here are my 6 week old (I'm guessing) Golden Link Pullets. Pretty little ladies they are! Very, very well behaved with each other too, that's a big help in my opinion when I think of introducing new chicks to them. They never picked on each other or bullied each other once, at least none that I saw!










Here are my new chicks, I'm guessing a week to two old. They are a mixture of Bantams and Leghorns.



The leghorn baby.




The Bantam in the left, leghorn in the right!

 

[Den in Penn]

When the youngest are fully feathered or around six weeks is a good time to allow them to mix. I you could keep the youngest in sight of the older ones for a week before it should go better. Even better would be to give them plenty of room while they are first together, say out free ranging.

 

[slordaz]

We put a divider in our brooder when we got some older chicks still needing the brooder they were half feathered out to the ones we'd gotten the day before, but we also had a duckling we got with the others that were somewhere between a 3-5 days we think. They could hear each other and knew they were there, 2 days later the younger ones decided to go introduce themselves anyway so we took the divider out and the duckling that thinks it's the babies mom makes sure the older ones aren't hurting the littler ones. We also didn't have an established flock to contend with when they get old enough and it's warm enough to start staying outside in the coop.

I would say there is a lot of different ways to go about it, most important is don't have bully breeds and docile breeds together.