[Texas.girl]

About a month ago 14 newborn chicks arrived in the mail and have been prospering in a former water trough set up in the kitchen. Our plans had been to move the chicks to the coop immediately upon completion of their coop, which has taken longer to build than expected but hopefully will be completed today. Yesterday we got a call that someone in town has decided to get rid of all of her chickens and do we want them. No idea yet how many chickens she has but we built a pretty big coop with 8 nesting boxes so we can handle quite a few chickens. Okay, here is my question. Should we put the adults and babies in the coop together at the same time so they all get accustomed to their new surroundings together or is that a bad idea? If not at the same time, then how do we do this? Once everyone knows where home is, they will be free-range chickens.

 

[ciwheeles]

No you probably shouldn't mix them up. The older ones may peck the younger ones. It's probably better to put the older ones in the coop and then put the youngsters in a dog crate or something during the day for a week or two and put that in the coop. That way they all get used to each other and no one gets pecked.

I'm about the go through the same thing with my girlies. I've got 8 two month old hens in the coop and 4 three week old hens I'm gunna have to start introducing to everybody in a few weeks. I've been doing a lot of research on how to do that! Lol

 

[enchantedgoats]

I would wait to mix them until the chicks are nearly fully fledged out. We just put 24 of these "baby" pullets with our older hens and nobody cared, as long as there was plenty of food in several places.

 

[nchen7]

agree with everyone. wait to introduce everyone. I tried introducing one semi-feathered out chick to a full grown, and the chick got pecked to no end.

there are feral chickens around us, and from what I've observed, the youngsters don't join the main group until they've completely feathered out. if mom leaves them before they've completely feathered out, then chicks have to stick together to fend for themselves until they're old enough to join the main group.

 

[rhodalee]

I used a little hoop pen that I made out of pvc pipes so they would see each other but could not get to the smaller ones

 

[Texas.girl]

Yesterday afternoon we picked up 11 hens and 2 roosters. Last night the coop was finally finished, at least enough to put the chickens in. For now we will keep the baby chicks in the kitchen.