Elderly cat breathing difficulties when purring

[rachel m]

at the moment we have a gingernut ranger and miss pepperpot.

 

my sister in law has been raising chicks from eggs, and has kindly offered to let us have one of their surplus girls. they were mixed eggs, but the one they are going to let us have looks like a mini version of their other light sussex girls.

 

their hen house is already pretty full, so she is keen to move her on to us. she is about 13-14w old, and already looks as biig or bigger than our girls.

 

is there a problem mixing medium and heavy breeds?

 

we thought it may be easier to start integrating her now, before she gets much bigger than the others, and i have read some provious posts about ways to do it.

 

just wanted to get some advice about integrating the different sizes, if anyone has any tip?

[meezers]

Well, I have 4 hybrids, a rhode island red and a light sussex and so far ( fingers crossed ) have had no problems whatsoever with the mix. The breeder did tell me when I was choosing, not to have 5 of 1 colour and 1 of another , as the five would likely pick on the odd one out, but a mixture seems fine

 

just to add - the light sussex, is the biggest, but also the bottom of the pecking order !

[Snowy]

Although she is the same size now, she is still a lot younger than your existing two, so will get picked on mercilessly at first. Eventually there should be no problem with the three, but do make it a very gradual introduction. Ideally keep her seperate but within sight and sound of the other two for about a week. When she is able to freerange, you could let them mix for short periods - space to escape from any pecking is important at first. Eventually they will tolerate each other then they can all be put in together. Have a read through the FAQs section, there are loads of other tips on integrating new hens.