Poorly chicken

[The Mcconnochies]

Just had two new chooks delivered to replace the ones that the Evil Fox took.

 

We have separated them from the other two but the noise is staggering ...clearly some pecking order issues need to be resolved. Our plan is to let them all roost in the hen house together tonight and hope for the best .

 

On a positive note the new ones are from the same flock that our original ones came from so they are all about the same size.

 

Anyone got any suggestions to help improve integration?

 

Apologies for going mad with the smilies...

[Guest]

You can never have enuogh smilies!

Hope Mr Fox stays away! Grrrr

[jackian]

I have the same problem ..I had 2 new ones a week ago to replace one lovely Florry who was PTS before Christmas as we were left with Poppy and Clover.

 

Last Monday the noise was horrendous ..3 hours non stop . I thought OMG I have made a mistake. I went round to my neighbour to say sorry nearly in tears

The noise has got less over the week but still on occasion. They are in seperate runs and were let out for half an hour together on Sunday , it was OK till the mealworms were eaten then there was a s"Ooops, word censored!".We have not put them to roost together as I am a chicken I want to put not sure how to really ,I think I am going to have to bite the bullet on the weekend and let them get at each other and close my eyes.

My Poppy who I would have said is bottom chick was /is making most of the noiser .I have been told it is because she does not want to stay bottom chick when the new girls get out and about,

 

New girls are getting on really well together ,... so there is hope

I love smilys .

[The Mcconnochies]

Well, the girls mingled a bit before curfew.

 

There was a fair amount of pecking from one of the original girls (strangely the one at the bottom of the pecking order). The original queen of the flock didn't seem that bothered by the new arrivals.

 

The more interesting thing was that the two new hens (now named Ruby) (now named Molly) decided that they didn't want to go into the hen house but rather preferred sleeping outside in the cold...I gave them an hour or so to change their minds and then popped them in the coop...out of reach of Mr Evil Fox.

 

Looks like tomorrow might be an interesting day

[redcharlie43]

I think I must be quite a bad chicken Mum. I read about the different ways to integrate some new girls and decided on the shorter introduce them in the night and let them get on with it the next morning approach I know this doesn't seem to be the approach recommended because of various issues like diseases/quarantine etc but it worked for me. I made sure that I got them from a good breeder and I did try and introduce them slowly during the day but the new girls escaped and were not located until the evening which resulted in my poor OH balancing on top of the cube in the middle of the night, half in a bramble bush with a torch and me in the field next door with my head in a bramble bush trying to rescue a poor terrified chicken. He must really love me because he "let" me have the chickens and generally has nothing to do with them except eat their eggs!! In the end We put the new girls into the cube that night and have not looked back since. I have been very vigilant about diseases, worming etc but I have to say the girls have behaved very well and after 4 weeks we had a new flock with no bullying. The only problem we seemed to have was with the 2 older girls bullying each other a bit but otherwise they just avoided each other during the day but weirdly slept snuggled up together at night and then after about 4 weeks they became a little unit of 4. We have had them for aboout 4 months now and I would like to say that they seem to be very happy and healthy hens now if not very pampered. How has everyone else done new intros?