2009 Omlet cube and run for sale

[mischiefbec]

Hi folks,

 

We've recently had a new coop with a bigger run so decided to get two new ladies. We currently had two hyline browns but added a black rock and a bluebelle (both were around 17 weeks). The two existing ladies are none two friendly with the new ladies and the new ones won't come out into the run at all, just spend all day in the coop why the other two peck around outside. Today I let them out into the garden and noticed that the two new ladies went back in to get layer and water etc, when the other ladies nopticed they dashed in and chased them out. Any tips for easing the settling in process, I really want all our ladies to get along. Have checked the new two over and can't see any bald spots etc, so it's not getting overly aggressive.

 

Any advice greatly appreciated.

 

Love Bec xx

[Egluntyne]

Some advice can be found here

[Plum]

Doesn't sound too bad to me. How about extra feeders and water so if they get chased off one lot they can move to another. It can be quick or take ages for them to settle.

[heth1986]

Just a thought if you have the room... I recently added 2 new girls and did so by putting both old and new into a make shift run on my patio, I just fenced it off with some netting to give them plenty of space. My old girls had never been onto the patio previously, nor seen it to be honest, so it was a bit of mutual ground for them so no one really knew who was in who's home and they just got on with it! I gave them a couple of water sources and scattered food around on the floor rather than in one feeder so there were no arguments about hogging the feed either! I put them to bed together in the coop at night and put them back on the patio in the morning for a few days and it seemed to work really well. There was a quick scuffle when they went back into the coop permanently as this was back on the old girls territory, but again this was easily solved by shutting the old girl out to FR and leaving the younger ones in so that it became 'theirs' too.

 

To be honest I think I was lucky with how smooth my intros worked but I certainly think the 'mutual ground' helped alot. (I only got them last tuesday and they're now all the best of buds)

[dance in the dark]

I totally agree with heth. I normally try to make sure that they have a bit of time to just see each other, and maybe FR, before bunging them in a coop all together, it can work when you do it like that, but mostly I think slow and steady is best.

 

If you still have the old coop, you could try keeping the new girls in that for a while and lest the old girls come up to them, let them interact, but in a way that is safe.

[mischiefbec]

Hi folks,

 

Thanks for all the advice. Things seemed to be getting better and we'd even found one of the new ladies all cuddled up with the older ones yesterday while out free ranging. Then today things have all gone a bit pear shaped. Ladies didn't have much time to be out free ranging today and were just out in their run. When we got home around 4pm we let them out into the garden and found that Tom (new black rock) was utterly raw around the back of her legs, I literally could have cried for her. We quickly split the ladies up, put the new ones in the new house with the large run and saw both ladies eating and drinking happily. We let our older two hybrids out in the garden why we sorted out their old house, and had a bit of a wing clipping session as we had to retrieve one from next door again today (three days in a row she'd got out somewhere). I genuinely feel at a bit of a loss with it all, we were doing so well and now I feel like throwing in the towel. Any advice as to what to do to help Tom heal and where to go from here would be really appreciated. Our two new ladies aren't quite at POL I don't think as they don't have very large combs.

 

Love Bec xxx