Brown Egg Layers. Weaning Chicks: How To Introduce Chicks To The Flock. Hatching chicks is year round here at Just Fowling Around.
As long as the hens are laying we are typically hatching, though we do reduce volume at certain times of year. What do you do once the chicks are hatched? Ours are in brooders, where after the first couple of weeks we begin reducing the temperature by about 10 degrees per week. If using heat lamps, it’s a matter of raising the heat lamp a bit each week so the temperatures are lower, which prepares them for the cooler temperatures in an outdoor environment. If using a brooder unit as we do, the thermometer is adjusted until they receive no additional heat. Chicks must be fully feathered before moving to the grow-on pens, which is between 4 and 6 weeks old. At about 12 weeks, reliant upon size and breed, we introduce to the general flock. Not all breeds are easy to integrate, so some of the younger birds are not introduced until they can hold their own and of a size to defend themselves. Murray McMurray Hatchery. The My Pet Chicken Guide to Incubating & Hatching Eggs, Table of Contents.
Chicken Hatching Eggs. How to introduce new chickens into your flock. Assuming you’ve checked your new chicken for mites, illnesses etc, and its perfectly healthy you can now introduce your new arrival into your existing flock.
But how do you go about this? What is the best way? Well the best way would be to put them in a ‘holding pen’ next to the coup you intend for them to stay in, so they can all get to know each other. But let’s be realistic here, most chicken owners just have the one coup, and this process takes time they do not have. So what can you do? One of the best ways we have found is to introduce them late at night, after your current flock have bedded themselves down for the night. So if you have an adequate size travel cage, hold them in there with some food and water until after your chooks go to bed, and then put them in the coup. But you only have a cardboard box and cannot hold them? 2. If he is a gentleman, he may woo her for a bit… strutting sideways left and right before he jumps her. Introducing New Hens to an Existing Flock. There’s no set method that allows you to drop a new hen into your lot and have everything go peacefully.
It’s the nature of chickens to develop a pecking order. There’s understood body language that ranges from mildly threatening head-darts to more aggressive chest bumps. Hens on the bottom will scurry about, and give the top-ranked hens room. Once in awhile, a chicken reasserts her place with a dramatic gesture. The worst is when a hen pins another one down and viciously pecks at her head. Each chicken will have a different response to the newcomer. Always isolate the new bird for a week to make sure that they don’t have an obvious respiratory disease. Once the hens have met and can free-range together, you can move the new hen into the coop. For the first week, keep an eye on your new hen. Adding To Your Flock. Adding New Chickens to Your Flock Compiled and edited by Buff Hooligans Part One: Quarantine!
Part Two: Understanding Flock Dynamics (the Pecking Order) Part Three: So You Still Want to Introduce New Chickens to Your Flock? Methods of Introduction Part 1 Most Important Advice Ever: Quarantine! From a post by "lilchick" on September 16, 2008 Most of us have felt sorry for and rescued chickens. Quarantine advice from BYC Member "MissPrissy" (paraphrased) Getting more chickens?
When you get new chickens, please do not go straight home and put them in with your current flock. Be prepared. New chickens need to be quarantined away from your other chickens for at least 30 days. During the quarantine: 1. 2. 3. How do I introduce new chickens into my old flock? from My Pet Chicken. We get questions about this all the time!
Let there be no doubt: adding new birds to your pre-existing crew can be stressful, both to you and the birds. Your flock, peaceful because every hen knows her place in the pecking order, will be thrown all out of whack by the addition of newcomers. Every hen and roo will once again have to vye for his or her spot on the pecking order. At times it can seem like all-out war! The good news: it only lasts about a week, and there are a few things you can do to make it much easier on all of you. Two things to consider first, however. You can also watch this YouTube videos to see additional tips and advice on quarantine: Second,make sure the chooks you're introducing are old enough to defend themselves against the larger birds in your flock, certainly no sooner than 6 weeks.
A few warfare-alleviating tactics we can say with certainty that reduce fighting all involve distraction.