2009 Omlet cube and run for sale

[hippy chick]

Well Today I decided that It was time to finally get on with merging my two flocks.

I have one flock of three and a flock of four. they have been FRing together for weeks. They do seem to get along ok apart from a couple of pecks and some chasing. Anyway this evening I put them all into the big shed. I am hoping that they will settle down especially since it is dark now. But what do I do in the morning, and what if they decide to back to the other coop tomorrow how do you make them learn which house to sleep in.

[chicken bark]

When I merged two sets of hens I shut off access to the one coop during the day. Then for the first couple of nights I let them go into their original coops but moved each hen across into the coop I wanted them to be in.

 

After a couple of nights they seemed to learn that they all were supposed to go into the one house.

 

Then I removed the other house completely.

 

The only reason I let them back in the original house at night for the first two nights was to stop them roaming around aimlessly wondering where they should go. This also meant catching them and moving them into the bigger house was easier.

 

Hope this ramble makes sense.

 

Good luck with it.

[hippy chick]

Thanks, thats what i'm worried about most them mooching around and squabbling at bed time. Do you think I should allow them into their old coop in the morning where they like to lay or do I just leave them to sort themselves out

[migsy]

Keep us updated HippyChick because I need to do the same thing soon, except I have 2 coups which they will stay in. I just need to put the newbies coup in the WIR so that they can all share the same run space. They FR together fine, but I'm worried about them sharing a confined space.

 

Good luck!

[Minnie&Moose]

The few times I've done this I've just let the chickens decide where they wanted to sleep - but made sure I don't end up with one hen all on her own. It took different amounts of time on each occasion but I think the longest it took before everyone consistently chose to sleep together was 2 weeks; the most recent time it took 3 days when the older hens all decided to move out of their nice into the newbies' on the first night of all being in together and only agreed to move back to their when I removed the

 

Good luck.

[hippy chick]

Well at last all seems to be going well, they are all sleeping in the same house.

Although the ones out of the other coop are still insisting on laying in the old coop . maybe its time I took it away from them .

 

Thankfully the integration went fairly smoothly and there doesn't seem to be any squabbling. Although I am beginning to wonder if Penny's broodiness is connected to the merge.

 

Jilly x