wondering if you would put new chicks in with chicks that are 1wk old

[chickybokbok]

I had 8 - eight week old chicks that were out in the coop and decided to get four more babies from Rural King. I sectionedoff one corner with chicken wire and put the babies in. About a week later I went out one morning to feed them and found all four of my babies in with the larger chicks and two of my older ones in the babies "pen". No one was bloody so I took down thepen and they have lived together happily for a couple of weeks now.

 

[MeowCluckBark]

I put my 1 day old babies in with my 1 week old babies and now they are 1 week old and 2 weeks old

They get along great. I have 6 week old girls mixed with 9 week old girls outside. I put the 2 week old girls out in a small pen in the yard yesterday to get some sun and fresh air and the big girls all came over and inspected them. The Jersey Giants let the little ones peek their heads out and peck at their feathers a bit. It wasn't like pecking for aggression, they just seemed curious about the big black birds. My littler 6 week old Brahma girls just nestled up and took a nap right by the pen. I think as long as you just watch for any that are aggressive you're fine.

 

[debid]

I have mixed age chicks (few days, 1 week, 2 weeks). They came from different chick bins and were thrown together all at the same time so I wasn't disrupting an existing order but rather creating chaos from which an order emerged. There haven't been any issues here with the size differences. The little ones don't seem to even realize they're smaller -- they copy what they see the older ones doing so they're probably bolder than they would be otherwise.

 

[1muttsfan]

It always works best if you mix two bunches of them together, if you just add one or two to a bigger group there is more likely to be problems. When I mixed 6 peeps in with some 5 week olds the older chicks were petrified of the little guys, it was hilarious.

 

[lamNervousNellie]

When I had to introduce chicks, I sectioned off a portion of my brooder with a window screen, and put the new babies on one side. This way, they were able to see and smell each other. I left them like that for a day and slowly introduced the old birds to the new birds one by one by adding them to the other side of the window screen. When almost everyone was on one side, I lifted the screen out and watched them closely for about 30 mintues. Everything went totally smoothly since they'd already all seen, heard, and smelled each other. They acted like one another were old news

(I have a fairly larger brooder, fyi!)

 

[hunter109]

i ant got that big of a brooder i have a cage for transporting 3 or 4 big birds but then i made a bigger one but not much bigger then the other one thats why i am going to keep the ones in the little one and the older ones in the bigger one till they get alittle feathering then i am going to see what they do when they see the younger ones

 

[miraclz5]

We have 24 chicks together that vary in age by several days....it was suggested/recommended to us by the breeder that we got most of our chicks from that it was okay to put chicks of differing ages together as long as the youngest were at least a week old and that there was not more than 4 weeks difference in their ages...we have introduced new chicks a couple of times without incident following this recommendation. The resounding thing I have read about putting older and younger chicks together is to watch for pecking.

Good luck!

 

[1muttsfan]

Hunter you can make a very good and inexpensive brooder out of a cardboard box. A large appliance box (think dryer or refrigerator works fine. I have brooded my chicks in these for years.

The box is tipped on its side, and the top cut out. Line it with heavy plastic, like a contractor bag.

When you are done with it, just throw it away.

 

[genabeana]

They are so close in age, it should be little to no problem to put them together.

 

[AUChick9202]

I had the same question a couple of weeks ago.....I put a 1 day old in with my 1 week olds and they did fine. They are now 2 and 3 weeks. My 2 week old is now trying to rule the roost!!