NEEPS

pete_inthehills · Posted: Tue Aug 18, 2009 11:05 am Post subject: intragrating new birds

Hi

I'm selling one of my young hens to a friend to replace one of his. He's got one single hen at the moment.

How does he put them together without feathers flying?

Does he need to lock the new one in the pen for a couple of days just to ensure that it knows where its new home is?

pete
inthehills
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Townie · Moderator Joined: 04 Jul 2007 Posts: 2723 Location: Fife

I think i'd be inclined to pop it in the hen house at bedtime, they they will wake up together and pecking order-ness (should be) at a minimum

Diana · Posted: Tue Aug 18, 2009 12:00 pm Post subject:

Should be relatively hassle free as there's only one other bird.
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Welly · Posted: Tue Aug 18, 2009 9:04 pm Post subject:

I agree with Townie. Whenever we have introduced new birds to an existing flock, we do it after dark. The resident birds are roosting, and don't pay any attention.

By morning, they're all friends (usually), although the new birds normally stay in the shed (of their own accord) for a few days until they are brave enough to go out!

Welly
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Julie · Posted: Wed Aug 19, 2009 11:02 am Post subject:

I once read that every time something changes - even when one of the existing flock dies - the whole pecking order has to be re-established. They don't just all move up a place, it doesn't work like that. Chances are you have just had a nice smooth transition with your birds because they all adjusted easily. It seldom causes much disruption in my experience too, I think the problems are less commonplace that we are often lead to believe. If they are free ranging, it is easier for the birds to give each other space anyway, it would be more problematic in a small run, imo.
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Esther.R · Posted: Wed Sep 02, 2009 10:26 am Post subject:

The main problem I have had with introducing them freeranging is bedtime, I seem to always end up chasing chickens around the place to try and shut them up for the night, the new one always seems to do a runner and hide when I need to put it to bed. I always put mine in at night and that seems to be far better, the occasional ones I have put in during the day have always resulted in fighting, not bad fighting but far more than I seem to get when put in overnight. I have just introduced a single young (9wk old) cockeral into a flock with an existing cockeral and when I put him in during the day they chased him and I had to rescue him as he spent the day wedged in the centre of a bush refusing to come out, tried again by putting him into the house at night and all was fine and peaceful the next morning, he just kept to the edge of the group but didn't hide.

Julie · Posted: Wed Sep 02, 2009 10:57 am Post subject:

Unless you have an awful lot of hens the bigger stronger cockerel might kill him, it depends on his temperament. It may be why he is running away and unwilling to go into the house at night.
I'm not sure what the ratio should be of cocks to hens, opinion seems to vary, but I doubt a very dominant cockerel would respect a statistic anyway.
We were all set to neck the cockerel from this years hatch but then his daddy died so he got a reprieve. They won't ususally tolerate the competition from another cockerel unless there are no hens, or the hen population is so big that there is enough to go round, iykwim.
I posted a link to the DEFRA booklet about the welfare of hens in the resource thread, you might find something helpful in there.
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Esther.R · Posted: Wed Sep 02, 2009 11:05 am Post subject:

Sorry I didn't give you the full story there, the existing cockeral was only introduced three days before him (well at the same time when I had to rescue the youngster from the bush) and is a bantam so the youngster (leghorn x) is bigger than him, we are keeping him as we currently have no full sized cockeral. There are five hens, so not a lot but I have done this combination twice before with no problems, an adult bantam and a young full sized cockeral with a similar number of hens. Have been lucky so far with cockerals, always kept multiples and only had one serious fight (that was a mistake of mine, I reintroduced two adult cockerals when they had been apart for a few days, it was fine in the end I just split them up and kept them seperate with a few hens each until I rehomed one).

Currently the dominant hen has everyone well under her thumb, including both cockerals.

eta - it was the bantam cockeral who wouldn't go to bed at night, not the youngster, he has been fine at night. All the yokohamas I have had have been a nightmare for running away and hiding when they first arrive, they just seem to be nervier birds than some of the others.

Sorry for the misleading post.

Forget-me-Not · Neepster Joined: 25 Jan 2008 Posts: 1031 Location: Insch

I've got my three pullets from Sass and my two from JoH all in the smaller run within my big one. I had let the two from JoH out with my six hens and it was going fine, no violence although the littlies looked a bit lost. When I brought the three, the two others seemed to want to join them. They're all doing great, I've let the first two out again and they potter abit but then want to go back. As they are all still at the cheepy noise stage, I think it highlights their existence to our 5 month kitten who's shown more interes than the cats who aren't bothered. We're using diversion tactics with him, loud rattle noise when near. I should probably put them in with the others at night but feeling protective and they seem happy.

The six hens are 4 calm breeds and two pretty chilled hybrids.

Beth
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Esther.R · Posted: Wed Sep 02, 2009 1:47 pm Post subject:

My sablepoots from JoH are determined to join my pekins I got from sass earlier in the year too, they seem to be sociable little birds. My yokohama cockeral is the only bantam I have with my big hens, basically because he has no girls of his own so he has big girls instead