Saturday, January 30, 2010

Re: [CHICKENS-101] Introducing new chickens

 

Have you tried putting new hens in at night? Usually if a Rooster wakes
up with them he is more likely to accept.... LOL kinda like waking up
after a all night party and...well you get the gist :-) But I would
watch him the next day just to be safe.

Pete
Moderator

On 1/30/2010 7:28 AM, Mona wrote:
> Hello all, I know this has been gone over plenty of times but I can't seem to find a solution to my particular issue so here goes. Don't know of y'all remember, I got myself 5 buff orp chicks about 15 weeks ago from a lady that ordered from Ideal. They are big beautiful girls just like you all told me they would be. The prob is they are STILL in my kitchen!! I lost 2 of the babies at 11 weeks when I tried to integrate them into the flock - I had 3 roos at that time and 2 of them ganged up on them and pecked them to death in the head! Not a pretty sight, my daughters were quite traumatized. I gave away those 2 roosters, so now I'm down to 1 roo and 4 hens (1 bantam, 2 white leghorns, 1 something that lays brown eggs and has fluffy cheeks LOL). I waited a week or so to try it again after I re-homed the offending roos and the other roo charges them full-tilt and won't let them anywhere near the other hens, food or water when they are out in the yard all together. I whacked him but good with the broom a few times thinking he would leave them alone but he's a brat. He has charged my daughter a couple of times too and she kicked him and he stopped (she's 9). So long story short, the babies are 15 weeks old and still in the kitchen and my coop is too small for me to try putting another cage or something into to do it that way for a few days. What I did when I put the leghorns out there was to put them in a large dog crate next to the run for 2 days so they could see each other& get to know each other without harm& that worked well, there was very little squabbling& no blood drawn when I put them together on the 3rd day, they've been fine since. I would have to wait till mid-spring to do that again before the temps got warm enough to do that safely. I've read to put all them in a new coop but I don't have anything else to put them into so that won't work. Anything I haven't thought of yet? The part that get's me the most is that I've read that roo's usually protect new girls& he's the one who's attacking them! The other hens look like they could care less and just ignore the new girls. UGH. This is a very frustrating not to mention smelly problem for me LOL! On the upside, the new girls are VERY friendly and love attention, they even jump up and sit on our arms etc! Well since this is my first post in a long while, I hope everyone had a wonderful holiday season& a happy new year!
> Thanks!
> Mona
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