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Anybody know of any tricks to get 2 sets of hens together? They are from April and June of 2007 and need to get them together so we can put our 2008 chicks in the nursery. Thanks!
All we ever did was to put them together and let them decide how the "pecking" order would be. They will work it out themselves. It is better if they have been alongside each other through a fence. We had no trouble doing it that way. But also had no trouble when we added some we were given and just put them together.
i have had trouble combining chickens before mostly because i get so scared when all that pecking and chasing begins. my favorite way is to put in the new hens at night. it seems like when they all come out of the same house in the morning they think well everything must be okay i slept next to this girl all night, instead of just dumping in new unknown animals and expecting chickens to figure things out (my chickens arent great at figuring). another thing i do if there is pecking or i think there will be tension is i give them something very distracting and exciting like i rake a whole bunch of leaves into their yard which they then rake through for hours in bug frenzy. or also if you have some whole seeds and grains scattered around for them to scratch like sunflower and whole corn. these last alot longer on the ground they don't get black and soggy like cracked corn. or a bunch of buns or a sunflower head. just something to distract, an activity besides eating the newcomers. good luck!
I just released my 8 week old chicks into the coop with my 8 month old hens. They`re doing fine now. I just hope the keep up the generocity in the morning.:)
I had some very aggressive hens one time. I tried to introduce new hens and it was very upsetting to the balance of things. So, I put the new ones by themselves and added one of the old ones to the lot, the next day another and so on until my coop was too full. Then I added them all back into the main yard. No problems anymore.
That doesn't usually happen though. They usually just peck each other a few times and get on about the business of eating and laying and breeding.
