Integrating the young and the old chickens has been the hardest part of raising chickens so far.
When I first got into chickens I had an assumption that the roosters may hurt the chicks...which has never happened. I only have chicks that the hens hatch so when to introduce them to the 'herd' is up to the mother. I keep three roosters caged up in separate outside pens, but the chicks walk right through the 2 x 4 inch welded wire. The roosters never bother them...and these three are pretty aggressive, and big...which is why they are caged.
Two roosters...a small Seabright and very docile D'uccle rooster run and roost with the chickens...oddly, they always stay near their wife, or in the Seabright's case...wives. I have two bunches of chicks...one of five Old English (four hens and a roo...lucky me) and one of eight of mixed up chicks as yet unguessed as to sex.
When hens hatch chicks they introduce the chicks to the flock when they are just a few days old...and protect them. Mine do anyway. My oldest OE chicks are only 7.5 weeks old but the hen has (for lack of a better phrase) 'weaned' them a few days ago. She quit going in with them to the nesting crate where she hatched, and raised them...and started getting on a low perch and pecking them away from her. Now...they stay together but run the yard by themselves without her. She is no longer mothering them. She has taken back to the high perch with everyone else, and the chicks roost in the crate without her.
This latest batch is only 4.5 weeks old and the mother takes them very far afield. I live in a rural area on a dirt road...and am surrounded by woods. Yesterday she took them...along with all the rest of the chickens...across the road, and fifty feet into the woods. A predator got one chick (I heard the commotion in the woods and everyone came rushing out into my yard) so now she is down to eight. She spends a lot of time calling to them as they tend to wander off by themselves a lot. A lot more than I figured young chicks would.
But as far as the rest of the flock goes...the chicks, even the very young ones...are just part of the group and the mothers introduce them, and integrate them when they are just a few days old.
