Six Things to Do When Introducing New Chickens to Your Flock

Remember your first day at your new job?  You walked in carrying your little file box containing not much more than your coffee cup and your potted plant and found your way to your new office.  Everybody’s stared at you and you didn’t know any of them.  You didn’t know where the break room or the bathroom was—you didn’t know where anything was, and you weren’t sure what you were supposed to do next. 

Now, imagine that all your new co-workers had beaks and were crowding around to maliciously peck at you and you’ll be pretty close to what it must be like to be that new chicken you’re introducing to your flock.  Which is why you can’t just open the coop door, toss in a few new chickens and hope for the best.  It will be a stressful time for you and your flock, but with a little planning and strategy you can make it a little less stressful.  

Here’s a list of six planning and strategy tips with a little commentary.  I’ll follow that with the blow by blow from this past week, when I introduced my six little pullets to the twelve old chickens in Coop 1.

1 - Quarantine the new chickens:  Any new chickens should start out in a totally separate area from your flock for several weeks.  This gives you time to check out and treat the new birds for any diseases, lice or mites that you may discover they’re carrying.  These new chickens will be stressed by their move, which makes them more susceptible to disease.  If you’re starting with baby chicks, they’ll need their own area because they’re tiny and vulnerable.  Babies need to grow to at least four-months-old before they can be integrated into your flock.

2 - Allow them to introduce themselves:  After you’re sure you have healthy new chickens, allow your new and old chickens to see each other.  You can either build a separate coop within your old coop, or put a new one up right next to the old one.  Separate the two spaces with fencing—this way the new and old chickens can see each other and perhaps even start working on the pecking order with visual cues but they won’t be able to fight.  This stage should take a couple of weeks.

3 - Check your space and equipment:  Before your chickens actually start living together, make sure that you have adequate space in your coop for the additional birds.  Crowding is the best recipe for fighting and bullying.  Add extra feeders and water founts for a while—it’s an easy thing to transfer the feeders and founts your new chickens are using when you transfer the chickens.  The new chickens will spend a lot of time the first few weeks avoiding the old hens.  This could mean not being able to get near the feeders and founts if there are too few.  Also, add some roosts.  Even if you think there is adequate roosting space, an extra roost is a great place to go to escape the mean girls.  You may also want to consider a few obstacles for the new hens to hide in or behind.  Something as simple as a pile of big branches or a roll of wire fencing on its side will work—it doesn’t have to be fancy.

4 - Get the party started:  Open the door and let them mingle!  Some flock keepers recommend putting the new chickens on the roost in the middle of the night.  I’ve tried this and my experience has been that it just delays the inevitable drama to the morning when they all wake up. There will be drama!  You can expect pecking, chasing, and aggressive behavior but don’t intervene.  If a bunch of old hens get a newbie cornered and she can’t escape, that’s when you step in, but otherwise let them do their thing.  They have to work this out! 

5 - Keep them busy and entertained:  This is a perfect time to introduce a chicken swing or coop toy—and give them extra treats and scratch.  Too many treats over the long haul is not a good idea, but this is a special occasion, so splurge!  Chickens who are eating scratch are not chasing other chickens!

6 - Keep an eye out:  Spend extra time with your flock to make sure nobody’s getting bullied and everybody’s settling in.  The first week is the worst!  You’ll all get through it, though, and someday you’ll all laugh about it!

The six steps outlined above is advice any experienced flock keeper will give you.  I followed pretty much all of this advice when I introduced this year’s babies to the Coop 1 flock.

1 - Quarantine:  I brought the little pullets home as chicks on June 6 and they spent the next two months in the woodshed. 

Baby pics of the six pullets (l to r) Moe & Paula the Salmon Faverolles, Pippi & Squawky the Speckled Sussexes, Rose & Valerie the Gold Laced Wyandottes

2 - Introductions: On August 12, the teen-aged chicks moved into a temporary coop in the pole barn.  Half of their new coop was right next to Coop 1, and the other half was actually a fenced off area inside Coop 1.  (You can read the story of their move at “Leaving Chickhood Behind – The Hipster Chicks Move Out of the Woodshed”) With just a fence separating the pullet coop from Coop 1, the little girls and the old hens could see each other and interact.  I built a door into the fence separating the coops so when the time came to join the two groups together I could just swing the door open.  Eventually the fence would come down, but if anything went awry at first, I could simply shut the door to separate the two spaces.

3 - Space: Coop 1, at 240 square feet is almost cavernous for the twelve birds living there and still quite commodious for an additional six pullets.  At one point there were 24 hens in that coop, but steady attrition is a sad reality of chicken keeping.  The most recent hen to depart Coop 1 was Betty the Easter Egger, who moved out when the rest of the flock started inflicting mob violence on her (read Betty’s story at  “The Life and Times of Betty the Transgender Chicken”).  Betty, after spending time on her own, was now living very happily with the pullets.  The question was, when I introduced the pullets could I also reintroduce Betty?

4 - Party Time:  On Oct 4, when the pullets were just two days shy of their four-month birthday, I opened the door separating the coops.  The pullets seemed oblivious.  The birds who noticed it were Barbara, Charlie, and Darcy, the ruling junta of Barred Rocks in Coop 1.  It was only when swaggered through the door into the pullet coop that the pullets realized that there was a hole in the wall!  They crowed into a corner in shock and surprise. I imagine the Barred Rock hens were saying something like, “Heeeeyyy.  Pretty nice place you’ve got here.  Hmmmm – nice feeder.  Guess we’ll have a little feed.  You don’t mind, do you?  Because if you do, you can come over here and we’ll discuss it.”  Emile the rooster showed up then, and danced around saying, “Let’s keep it calm, ladies.  We don’t want any violence, ladies!”  And then, Betty jumped up, let out a chicken scream, and jumped feet first at Darcy, the nearest Barred Rock.  Feathers flew.  I intervened.  Betty would have been mauled if had I not picked her up.  Her legs are so weak that it’s probably a matter of time before she loses complete use of them – she can’t fight.  I realized right then that my plan to reintegrate Betty into the Coop 1 flock was a pipe-dream.  I had hoped that the Coop 1 hens had forgotten their animosity toward Betty – it didn’t occur to me that Betty might be carrying a grudge.  I gently put her out of the coop.  

All six pullets, terror-stricken, chose that moment to dash through the open door into the heart of Coop 1.  And that took the rest of the Coop 1 flock by surprise.  Everybody shouted, “Braaaakkkk!  Strange hens in our coop!  We’re outta here!”  And they all ran outside into the hen pen.  And for the next three or four hours that’s where things remained:  Emile and the Barred Rocks in the pullet pen, the pullets in Coop 1, and everybody else outside—three groups with no interaction.  Eventually, the hens filtered in from outside.  The pullets kept their distance.  I’m sure that distance will shorten as time passes.  Right now, we’re still only a few days into this process.

The Initial Standoff:  The Barred Rock Ruling Junta take over the pullet coop, the pullets flee into Coop 1, and the rest of the Coop 1 flock beelines outside.

5 - Entertainment: At present, the combined flock has complete access to both coops.  The pullet coop has an old workbench and the pullets spend a lot of their time on it.  There’s also a plethora of roosts in the coop and the outdoor hen pen, and a few pieces of coop furniture to hide behind.  So, given that the pullets run faster and fly better than the old hens, nobody’s getting mauled.  

Pippi, Squawky, and Valerie the pullets check
out the outdoor roost in the hen pen.

I bought one of those hollow plastic balls with a small opening that you’re supposed to fill with catnip and give to your cat to roll around – I fill it with scratch and give it to the chickens.  It keeps them entertained for a long time as they roll it around to work the scratch out.  Unfortunately, the old birds tend to monopolize it while the pullets look on wistfully from a distance.  But it does break the coop monotony and keeps the old hens too busy to think up any hazing activities for the new girls. 

Emile watches Paul the roo and Charlie Barred Rock
play with the treats ball.

6 - Eyeballing:  On day one of the merger, I was in the coop most of the day.  Since then I’ve spent a lot of time in the coop so see how everybody’s getting along.  There’s always something going on.  Like when Valerie the Golden Wyandotte pullet flew onto the roost and sat down next to Carmen Maranda the old Marans hen.  She was probably saying something like, “Hi!  I’m Valerie!  I’m one of the new hens, and I’m so glad to meet you!”  In way of reply, Carmen reached over with her beak and pulled two feathers from Valerie’s tail.  Valerie screamed in shock and pain and bolted off the roost.  That particular roost is the exclusive property of Sam the Easter Egger, and Carmen and Maran the Marans hens and they don’t take kindly to interlopers.  Valerie, of course, didn’t know that, but I assume she won’t try to roost there again.  It is really hard being the new hen, but these girls will figure it out!  I’ll post an update in a couple of weeks, and I’m optimistic that it will be good news.  Betty, meanwhile, is once again living on her own.  I’m going to try to see if she’ll fit in with the hens in Coop 2.  Stay tune for that report as well.  The ongoing coop saga will continue to be told. 

Betty is once again out of the coop and on her own.

Randy's Chicken Blog participates in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by linking to products available on Amazon.