Mercedes55 Posted July 22, 2011 Share Posted July 22, 2011 I'm having a bit of a dilemma right now. We are hoping to pick up some new girls tomorrow, a Light Sussex, a Bluebell, a Silver Laced Wyandotte and one other. Someone on another forum I use picked up her girls yesterday from the same place we are going to and when she posted pics of them you could tell they were still quite young and I think she was told they are 12/14wks old. Now I'm wondering how you feed such young girls once they are in with older girls? I am currently feeding mine layers pellets but assume at 12/14wks they would need growers pellets, but unless I keep them separate from the existing flock how do I feed them two different foods Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
scarlettohara Posted July 22, 2011 Share Posted July 22, 2011 You will need to keep them separate anyway as your old girls will bully them and you may get injuries - a piece of trellis or something to split the WIR will do and then you can give them their pellets Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tracyann Posted July 22, 2011 Share Posted July 22, 2011 If they are new hens you should keep them separate anyway for a few weeks, if they are younger as you say, they should be on growers pellets. I would keep them separate until they are around 20-22 weeks old then you can start to integrate them. That's what I have done with my new girls. Its easier to keep the food right. The new girls are in a separate pen/henhouse and see the other hens every day so they get used to each other. They are just too small to be integrated with the big girls straight away. Good luck!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mercedes55 Posted July 22, 2011 Author Share Posted July 22, 2011 I'm going to have to seriously thing about this before tomorrow as I'm not sure how to do it. Right now we have a 24ft by 7ft WIR which all our 7 girls are in. As one of our ex batts was plucking feathers out of our pure breeds to the point where 2 had no feathers on their necks and 1 had none on her head at all, we got the Eglu out of the garage, separated the run and put the ex batts in there. That was fine till one of the pure breeds went broody and she is now in with the ex batts as only one ex batt is laying, so once she has laid I can shut the door to the Eglu and all is okay. They seem to be getting on okay, although the broody is desperate to get back to her friends. I had assumed, wrongly I guess, that we could put the new girls we are getting in the open run that we have at the bottom of the garden. It only has a mud base and although it's fox proof, there is no coop in there and access is quite limited as it's only 3ft high, so my idea was to take the new girls out of there at night and put them in with the pure breeds in the Cube. However if they are going to need to be separate till they are 20wks that is going to be a lot of faffing around, yet I see no other option to ever extend our flock as I don't think I dare risk putting the feather plucker back with the others and OH says we cannot rehome her Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Olly Posted July 22, 2011 Share Posted July 22, 2011 You could put a cat carrier or something similar into the 'introduction' run for them to sleep in at first? Putting them all in to sleep together is a good way to get them used to each other, but it's a real pain in summer when the nights are so short. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
