Will I always have 2 flocks?

[MyFrancesca]

I couldn't resist in March and brought home 6 chicks from TSC...knowing we were going to be hatching eggs in my son's class in April. We ended up with 5 total hens, which are my ladies. We ended up hatching 4 chicks for my son's class. There is a 2 month age gap between them. The chicks sleep in the coop with the hens but during the day they are 2 different flocks. I wish so much they would all combine.
Is it possible they will in time or no?

 

[Ridgerunner]

Patience is your friend.

Older chickens can be pretty cruel to younger chickens. It’s just part of the pecking order-social ranking in a flock. The young ones wisely learn pretty quickly to stay away from those bullies. But once they mature enough to make their way into the pecking order, they will almost certainly become one flock.

When will that happen? I don’t know. Each chicken has its own personality and each flock has its own dynamics. It could happen fairly soon but it could (and is likely) to wait until the younger ones start to lay. That assumes they are all girls.

If there is a cockerel in the young group, the dynamics change some. They will still all become one flock, but with a cockerel it really becomes a “who knows when”. There are many different things that could possibly happen.

 

[NanaHess]

We are having this problem as well, had 2 flocks of 9 that are 11 weeks apart and we have the run divided with 2 coops for now until the growers become layers feed wise. 3 weeks ago, due to the high Roo Ratio that I seem to have a knack for, we found some "tweener" hens locally that we were assured would easliy merge into either flock. Opted to bring home 4 to ease them in as a group. Wound up having to put the smaller tweeners in with the babies and the larger 2 in with the big girls. Now I have 2 bullies and 2 victims. Still. Not to the point we fear for any of them, but I thought by now they would be accepted and/or accept the others.
Not looking forward to doing this again in 3 months when I remove the dividing fencing though.

 

[chfite]

I blended two flocks when the younger ones were about 12 weeks or so. The little ones were at the bottom of the order, and pretty much stayed out of the way.

As they matured, they still tend to forage as a group. The pecking order is established, but it is not unusual to see the group of Reds off by themselves with the Rocks in another location. The rooster covers all of them. They all sleep in the same coop.

Chris