jenjins1 Posted December 11, 2010 Share Posted December 11, 2010 there has been chaos! I orginally had four, one died, added two to make five and yesterday evening added two more. Three are the eldest, two about a year younger and two new 25wk ones. I added the new hens last night straight into the house in the dark and let them out this morning and watched for a while. There was pecking and chasing around but nothing too nasty. I went out to check on them at 4pm today to see if they were brave enough to go in the house as i can could see from indoors that the original five were making their way in. One of the new ones appears to be braver than the other and made its way in and then hell broke lose! They all tried to sit on the new one and were bending down to get to its face. Everytime i pulled them all away, one of them then pecked me and was frantically trying to get back to the new hen. They finally all settled as it got darker and i have left their flap open so that they can come out on their own in the morning and not fight until i go down to let them out. Even the original five started fighting between themselves too. What have i done?!! I had added two before to an existing flock and there was never any of this nasty fighting. Whilst they were in the run they were just occasionally pecking but going into the house has really upset them. I have a feeling that they are going to take ages to settle and really dont want the new ones to get injured but the vicious pecking. I am probably going to get pecked at too as my husband doesnt know i got another two yesterday as he is away and if he sees all this chaos going on he will just say why did you have to buy another two and upset them all!!!!!!!!!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Egluntyne Posted December 11, 2010 Share Posted December 11, 2010 Some advice **here**. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
green Posted December 11, 2010 Share Posted December 11, 2010 Hi, there's some info about introductions here. > viewtopic.php?f=42&t=25886 Hope it helps. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jenjins1 Posted December 11, 2010 Author Share Posted December 11, 2010 Thanks for the link. I never thought this would happen as previously it didnt. I shall have to keep a close eye on them and separate them. I have never seen such fierce chickens and the poor new ones almost went into a ball. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mercedes55 Posted December 11, 2010 Share Posted December 11, 2010 Sorry to hear you've had such problems introducing your new hens. We introduced 4 new girls to our existing ex batts and it did take some time. We took advice from on here and kept the new girls separate from the existing ones and it took about 6wks before we dared to take down the barrier between the two lots and let them mix together. They all get along really well with each other and we've not had any problems at all, but the ex batts still prefer to keep with each other and the new girls tend to stick together too. Hope you manage to sort your girls out as it must be awful to see them being like that Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jenjins1 Posted December 11, 2010 Author Share Posted December 11, 2010 The last time i introduced must have been rather rare as there was only a few pecks and nothing like this. I would have never added more if i knew this was the norm!! I honestly think that one hen would have really injured the other if i had not been there. This all happened when they were trying to get into the house at bedtime. During the day was almost fine! I dont really have any space to separate them and not sure what i am going to do really other than sort them out at bedtime until they stop fighting. Thanks.... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
