When to officially "combine"...

[TKGray5711]

We've got a 20week old BO flock of 9 hens. We've also got x3 3-4 week chicks (a lav. orpington rooster, and two mystery pullets). I've been taking their brooder outside during the day, the chicks have been out in the yard with the older girls a few times under supervision.

The hens have delivered a few pecks and very short chases to the little chicks, but more or less kind if ignore them/go off to their favorite foraging bush. We've been letting them all out together for bits of supervised time for about a week. The brooder has been outside with the hens all day, every day for a week.

When/how do we actually let the chicks sleep in the coop? We aren't worried about temperatures, as it's still fairly moderate at night here, and the chicks have been outside without a heat source the whole week. I just worry about them being injured.

The big hens don't seem really aggressive, just normal "pecking order" stuff...but I don't want to overestimate and put a chick in danger.

What are your thoughts?

 

[NatJ]

It's really going to depend on the temperaments of the individual hens, but I would suggest that you provide a safe place where the chicks can go and the hens cannot. With their current ages, there is probably enough size difference to make that pretty easy.

Here's an article about how one person did this:
https://www.backyardchickens.com/articles/my-coop-brooder-and-integration.74591/

Some other people have good results with less elaborate kinds of shelters for chicks, such as a wooden pallet supported on bricks at a height that lets chicks run underneath but the hens cannot.

 

[TKGray5711]

It's really going to depend on the temperaments of the individual hens, but I would suggest that you provide a safe place where the chicks can go and the hens cannot. With their current ages, there is probably enough size difference to make that pretty easy.

Here's an article about how one person did this:
https://www.backyardchickens.com/articles/my-coop-brooder-and-integration.74591/

Some other people have good results with less elaborate kinds of shelters for chicks, such as a wooden pallet supported on bricks at a height that lets chicks run underneath but the hens cannot.

Thank you. So are you sayingl let them be together, but make sure they have a "safe zone"? What about for sleeping?-same?

 

[HollowOfWisps]

My chicks brood outside and see everyone through hardware cloth from day 1. They integrate seamlessly this way with no issues. Once they are weaned off of the heat I open the doors and let them out together.

 

[NatJ]

So are you sayingl let them be together, but make sure they have a "safe zone"?

Yes.

What about for sleeping?-same?

Yes, the same.

They will probably need to sleep in the safe zone at night, at least at first, but then they can make their own choice about when it is "safe" to sleep with the big chickens.

Depending on how many roosts are in the coop, it might help to provide an extra one at a lower level than the main roost, and far enough away that a chicken on one roost cannot peck a chicken on the other roost. Chickens typically like to roost as high as they can, so the adult hens won't bother using a low roost. That will mean it's available for the chicks without competition from the hens, when the chicks want to start roosting but before they are mature enough to force their way onto the main roost. (Chickens can be nasty to each other at bedtime.)

 

[rosemarythyme]

My own process: I don't worry about the coop situation until the chicks are fine around the hens all day, unsupervised. You're not at that point yet, so I'd work on that first.

Once the chicks are fine with the hens outside and are fully off heat, I close up the brooder so they cannot use it any longer, and at dusk I gather up the chicks and cage them inside the coop. I find that I only need to do this a few days before the chicks follow the adults in and coop themselves.

Here's the small cage I set up for the chicks to sleep in.

Two days later, the chicks (29 day old) voluntarily roosted themselves. I took away the cage at that point.