melly264 Posted May 23, 2011 Share Posted May 23, 2011 Hi all, some advice please, i have read the FAQ's, but it seems our situ is a bit more complicated!! We have an established flock (reciently reduced) to 5 hens, 3 ex-batts, 1 belleblue and a white ranger. Happily living in a cube with run extension and an enclosure for some free-ranging when we are at home. we took pity on a lone hen who had survived a fox attack (unscathed) whose owners wanted to be chicken free for a while to get over the experience. Maud is in the blue eglu on her own. She is a 7 month old rhode island red and HUGE! They have all been eyeballing each other for a few days, sadly one of our ex-batts died at the weekend (old age, no sign of illness) and as she was no2 in the pecking order we thought it might mix things up enough to pop maud in and keep a good eye. We rushed, I know, silly mistake , dispite being the biggest by far Maud had no fight in her and was just hiding under the glug completely submissively and being walked on. I decided to pull her out again and put my thinking cap on So, do I mix Maud with a pullet (or 2?) as on the 1:1 intros and then mix these with the flock at a later date? Could I set up a temp home under the cube using the bamboo sticks method and a small hutch as an intro area? If I did the latter would it keep her safe enough from mr fox? Our normal intro method of lots of freeranging together has had to change due to Mr Fox having found our garden (and we think taking one of our hens 2 wks ago) I am just one confused bunny!!!!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gongladosh Posted May 23, 2011 Share Posted May 23, 2011 (edited) I'd only put the new girl under the cube if it's in a WIR or safe from foxes. I recently integrated a lone hen into an established flock (we managed to save a bantam chicken of fate!). Basically, in terms of integrating them, yes it can be done, but it may take 2 or 3 months - in addition to getting the existing girls to accept the new one, the new girl needs to build up her confidence as everything about her world is new and a bit intimidating at first. The biggest bit of advice I can give is to listen to then hens, all of them - they'll tell you when they're ready to merge. I was lucky enough to have a spare eglu in addition to my cube - you may be able to hire one somewhere locally. For our hens, it went like this: First step was to have the new girl and the existing flock able to see each other but at a distance After 2 weeks I moved the eglu's run closer to the WIR and then allowed limited supervised free ranging - this involved a fair few pecks and a bit of intervention. After another 2 weeks I moved them almost next to each other so they could get used to each other's smell. After another month of free ranging with daily pecking, I noticed a change - the top hen stopped pecking. Two weeks after that, the middle hen stopped pecking - at this point, on a morning the big girls started making a point of doing their morning monster poos in the eglu's run when free ranging. At this point, when all of the hens were being put back in their runs, the new girl wanted to be in with the big girls but wasn't yet allowed. Two weeks after that, the bottom hen stopped pecking- at this point the new girl was allowed to eat in the WIR, but not to stay for long. The only remaining obstacle was the new girl being allowed into the WIR for more than just a snack. That took another 2 weeks. After that, she naturally walked into the run and was allowed to stay - we then had a merged flock! Edited May 23, 2011 by Guest Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Duncan08 Posted May 23, 2011 Share Posted May 23, 2011 These intros are just so hard, and so difficult because these lovely girls have such distinctive personalities there isn't a one size fits all. I think your idea of putting one of your other girls in with her is a good one. They will hopefully buddy up and it will give your new girl some company. We did that with one of ours who was being bullied following advice on here and it did cheer her up a bit. She hated being on her own more than being bullied I think. Hopefully if she makes a friend it will give her some confidence. My Bluebell is no longer being bullied, but is back to being the outsider again since we lost our White Star, The other two are big buddies and do everything together, Bluebell is once again looking a little lonely, but fortunately whilst it is a shame to to see her on her own sometimes, she no longer gets picked on. We only have room for four and I don''t want to do a single intro, so that will just have to be the way it is for now. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
melly264 Posted May 23, 2011 Author Share Posted May 23, 2011 I'd only put the new girl under the cube if the cube were in a WIR I completely agree, thinking about it that makes perfect sense otherwise she is just too open to Mr Fox. Thanks for the advice, that sounds like a good introduction scheme under the circumstances. Would we be better to do a 1:1 and then a slow time intro for 2 hens or does that just complicate the matter further? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gongladosh Posted May 23, 2011 Share Posted May 23, 2011 Though it's usually best to merge >1 hens to a flock, (so it's not just one girl being bullied), I'd personally be tempted to just bite the bullet and introduce the one new girl to the whole lot, it'll take time and patience though. It's probably worth remembering that if you take one of your bottom hens and put her in with the new girl, there'll still be an amount of pecking anyway. One thing I didn't say earlier is that the first 2 weeks is effectively quarantine time as you don't want to risk bringing in disease/mites, so you don't want any contact between them early on. In the first 2 weeks, we allowed them to free range separately, i.e. old girls out first, then put back in, and THEN the new girl out. That way they get to be near each other, but not too near. In terms of foxes, I've had good results with a foxwatch device - I'd recommend getting one of those. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Egluntyne Posted May 23, 2011 Share Posted May 23, 2011 Some advice here about managing intros. *Click* Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
