When to introduce to flock?

[trunkman]

I have 10 week old EE chickens that I will soon need to mix in with my current flock, is it too soon or should I wait a few more weeks? A couple of weeks ago one of my EE's wondered into the main chicken run and the main flock of 16 week olds went after them badly making me think it's too soon, what do you think?

 

[Domestic_goddess]

Well I think you'll get a difference in oppinion on this. But I never introduce until they are about the same size as the other chickens. If you do and you noticed this, you could have dead chicks. Chickens can be very mean at times and they don't like new comers and it takes a while to get everyone adjusted to the idea and the chicks need to be big enough to defend themselves. I like to have seperate pens, fencing inbetween is always good idea and then they can see eachother and get use to each other. I have 22, 12 week olds I won't be introducing probably for another month or so. I like to let them free range a bit first and see how they all get along before I would ever consider putting them all together. Good luck!

 

[bakerjw]

IMHO 10 week old birds are too small. I had a bunch of chicks in a fenced in area of my coop with my regular birds from the time that they were a few weeks old. The girls saw them every day and were well acquainted with the fact that there were other chickens in the coop. The first couple of integration attempts did not go well. The closer they are in size to the main flock the better.

 

[trunkman]

Thanks for the advice all, I'll wait till they're all the same size..