Chicken boarders

[Dingle76]

I just wanted to get peoples opinions on whether there would be a fight?

 

We have 7 ex-bats and as there are nearly retirement we were thinking of bringing maybe a mixture of some more ex-bats and "regular" chickens. I am concerned that there needs to be more of them over the winter to keep warm together in their house (as there used to be 17 of them in there), plus we could get more eggs then.

 

Due to the lay out of their home and run there is not the facilities to separate 2 gangs whilst they got to know each other but I don't want to put my current girls in a situation where they get picked on by new "regular" chickens, or the new ex-bats get picked on by either the current ex-bats of the new "regulars".

 

I thought I had read somewhere that if you are going to get some new chickens you should at least get 2 so they bullying is spread out (so to speak).

 

If we have 7 now, should I get say 5/7 new "regulars" and 5/7 new ex-bats? Or not entertain this idea at all?

 

All thoughts welcome because I know sometimes Chickens can be mean to each other

[Egluntyne]

Inevitably there will be squabbles when you add new hens to a flock, and it is just as likely to be the older hens that do the terrorising.

 

Some advice here

[JanTheDiver]

I got three new girls on Saturday (27th Aug) and I was told by two people (one a chicken vet who has lots of his own chickens) to put them in the old girls shed/cube to get their smell on them and then let the old girls meet them at night.

 

I did this and after a few squabbles they settled in for the night. The new and old have been FR in the play pen ever since, there is the odd chasing of new by old girls but most of the time they are fine; all are feeding well. There is definitely still two distinct flocks though.

 

There are still a few squabbles at night time and the new girls are reluctant to go into the cube run when the old girls are locked in there too, but I think generally it has gone very well, after all it is still only day six.

 

I can definitely see it getting better each day

[NatalieC]

I've done two lots of intros and both times its been fine. There was a bit of posturing and squawking but nothing major. I did find that putting out two or three "food/drink stations" was a good idea so that the new girls could always access food and drink without being terrorised or chased off.

[Dingle76]

Thanks everyone. I have taken a bit of everyones advice and the 8 newbies we got on Saturday seem to be surviving the old girls.

 

Mostly there is neck stretching and if the oldies see them eating out of the corner of the eye that put a stop to it but generally it's only a little pull of a neck feather then everyone moves on.

 

When we had 2 separate lots of ex-bats last year they would really fight so I guess they have just chilled out a bit more now (and are more like pensioners too).

 

Just waiting until the next release of ex-bats in early October then we are all topped up for the winter