How to Introduce New Chickens to your Flock

It’s chick season!

Spring is that time of year where everybody seems to get baby animal fever. I’m no different: I’m seeing so many baby birds in nests, everyone and their mother seems to be getting a puppy, and to that person who got a new baby donkey on their farm? I’m watching you. You know who you are.

In respect to the coronavirus pandemic happening right now, local farm and ranch stores have had a major influx of customers buying baby chicks. People are becoming worried about food availability, and starting their own backyard flock and adding to their currently existing flock of chickens.

I think that owning chickens is one of the most self sustainable things you can do. I even wrote another whole article with that topic in mind, as well as a few things you should know as a beginner chicken keeper. But if you are adding new chickens to your flock for the first time, I am here to let you know that it is not as easy as just putting them all together once you get home. There’s a bit of a process, and I’d like to share with you my tried and true methods that have worked for me numerous times in the past!

Quarantine

Before you even think about combining your flocks, you need to quarantine your new birds. This is mandatory if you want to maintain a healthy group. Chickens are very resilient creatures, and even if they look healthy as can be and their old owner assured you that they’ve never been sick, they are very good at hiding illness. This comes from the evolutionary need to prevent themselves looking like a weakling – after all, the weakest are always the ones to be eaten first by predators, right?

Quarantine your birds well away from your original flock for 30 days. I know it is hard to wait. But trust me, it is the most responsible thing you can do. You are in charge of the lives of these little birds, so do them justice by giving them the time they need to get any potential bugs out of their system before spreading them.

Size Matters

Compare the sizes of your birds. If you bought new chicks from the farm store and have an already established flock of laying hens, it will be a couple months until your newbies will be large enough to safely be integrated with your ladies. You’ll want them to be at least as tall as the bigger gals. Just like any animals, chickens fill out when they get older, but once they reach about the same height they should be good to start thinking of joining the flock.

Face to Face Leave Some Space!

Okay, now I have images of chickens awkwardly dancing at a middle school social.

Anyway!

All I’m trying to say is make sure you have enough space for both your old flock and your new. It sounds like a no brainer, but you might want to take a peek around your coop. Is there enough room for a chicken to safely run away from an older matriarchal hen?

Does your coop have plenty of hideouts for those lower on the pecking order to escape to? (Try to avoid corners as much as you can – that’s where many birds in my care have gotten injured the worst. Once they are cornered and can’t get away, they just shut down and get pecked.)

Make sure you have plenty of perches in your coop setup. I’m speaking of off-the-ground perching that maybe only a couple chickens can be on at once. This gives the newbies a safe space to hangout while everybody gets used to each other.

You’ll want to setup multiple food and water stations while you integrate the groups. I’ve had my fair share of ‘bully birds’ that guard the water from the newcomers like their life depends on it. Don’t let this happen by simply setting up a few more stations!

Play Dates

Are you ready to let your birds meet for the first time? Instead of throwing them together and calling it good, consider letting them have a few short sessions together where they get to hang out, perhaps eat some fun kitchen scraps or mealworm treats, or even safe free-ranging time if your space allows. This will help normalize the company of each group to each other before they are forced to become one big happy family.

“Can’t I Just Sneak Them In At Night? That’s What Everyone Does”

I mean. Yeah, I guess you could try that. But honestly, in my experience? That rarely works. Chickens aren’t dumb – sure they will sleep the night away without noticing the newcomers, but come morning-time you may have a few nasty squabbles to break up. It’s far safer for your birds to do it the right way instead of just crossing your fingers that some night-time magic will happen.

Bully Birds

You’re gonna have one. I can almost guarantee it.

I had one by the name of Eliza. Eliza was one of those birds that seemed so sweet and innocent. She was the chicken that we would always let free range with us in our backyard, she would never cause much trouble, she was quiet, she was in the middle of the pecking order…I could go on.

But then Eliza’s true colors came out when we brought home her arch nemesis, Miss Reynolds.

At that time we had 3 original hens that we were introducing Miss Reynolds to. (I don’t recommend introducing just one new chicken at a time to your established flock, but I’m also here to tell you that it is possible, it just takes a lot more work and care).

The other two girls had a few squabbles with Miss Reynolds when they first met. They worked it out, established a quick pecking order, and that was that. But Eliza was not having it with this newcomer. It’s like her whole demeanor changed and her life quest was to destroy this intruder. Holy cow.

We tried one-on-one time. We tried letting Eliza hang out in her own space in a dog kennel next to the others. We tried removing Eliza from the flock for days, reintroducing her as the newcomer, only to watch her rip into Miss Reynolds again. She would follow Miss Reynolds everywhere she ran, go chase her into corners, fly up on perches with her.

And that’s when we finally found the trick that worked. It’s not our proudest trick, but we used…

Physical Barriers/Clothing

Yup.

We dressed Eliza up.

We found a stretchy old piece of pantyhose in the closet. We were trying to find a way to allow Eliza and Miss Reynolds to share the same space without Eliza having access to everywhere Miss Reynolds ran off to.

So I cut the ends off the pantyhose, slipped them over Eliza’s little torso and wings so they were gently hugged against her body. And let them all loose together in the chicken coop.

She straight up looked like a tyrannosaurus rex.

You know why I think this worked? It allowed Eliza to get used to seeing her mortal enemy sharing space with her and her sisters. It allowed Miss Reynolds to get used to Eliza’s presence and slowly understand that she could in fact safely escape from her, since Eliza couldn’t fly up after her on perches. And slowly, Miss Reynolds stopped wildly flapping away from Eliza anytime she got near. Which, in turn, made Eliza stop going for the chase.

Once we saw a change in the dynamics of the group, we allowed Eliza to be without the pantyhose-vest-thing. We saw that at that point, Miss Reynolds had gained enough confidence in her new space that she actually stood up to Eliza’s attacks. They fought it out for a minute, then guess what?

They became inseparable best friends.

I really don’t know what to tell you after that. Chickens are wonderfully weird little dinosaurs.

Anyhow! I hope this helped you get an understanding of what goes into a successful integration when you are wanting to combine your new chickens with your already established flock. It’s not as easy and throwing them together on day 1, but it can be quite straight forward with the right plan in place!

Happy growing,

Becca

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