Integrating 7 week old chicks with existing flock

[Lisa L]

My five 7 week old bantam chicks have been out in the fenced run (but separated and living in a smaller coop) with my existing nine assorted mix bantams for the past two weeks. I'd like to open the door and let them in with the bigger girls ( no rooster), but two of the chicks are old English have hens, therefore much smaller than the other three cochin chicks. Do you think this will become a problem?

 

[talkinboutchickens]

Hi, I only have experience with integrating standard-sized chickens so I hope my advice will still work for you.
What I did was I would put my chicks in a cage (of course along with food and water and bedding) and I would put the cage in the "big girl" run with all the adult chickens every day and let the big chickens check 'em out through the cage, and every evening or so I would bring them back inside and repeat the process every day for about a week. Then I would eventually release them into the big girl run and supervise them for a while to make sure that no conflicts break out and that your other bantams don't try to be aggressive with your chicks. Um I don't think it should be a problem that some of your chickens are smaller than others, but I don't have bantams so hopefully someone who does can chip in

 

[Lisa L]

They are all separated by chicken wire now so they are definitely familiar with each each other. I guess my concern was that the two OEG's are so tiny. What age were your chicks when you combined them?

 

[rosemarythyme]

Actually their smaller size should make it easier for them to slip through small openings to escape, so that's not an issue. Assuming you're putting the chicks into the adult area and not the other way around, make sure there's plenty of clutter to provide hiding spots, and let them loose when you can supervise for a bit to see how they do.

 

[talkinboutchickens]

They are all separated by chicken wire now so they are definitely familiar with each each other. I guess my concern was that the two OEG's are so tiny. What age were your chicks when you combined them?

Um I actually don't remember! I think they were about 1 month or a bit older.