[Closed] CHICKENS: introducing 2 new ones to 2 old ones

Have you heard of "pecking orders" they will scrap till they sort themself out mine did

Keep em seperate for a few days so they get used to the sight of each other and then let the fight begin

depends on the ages etc in my experience.

very young birds - I've always had in a separate run inside the main run for a couple of weeks until they're used to one another. They'll all deal with it but if they're really junior then they can have a miserable time of it.

With older birds (point of lay +) - shut the nestbox door. Wait until after 9pm when the existing flock are all well asleep. Introduce sleepy new birds. Wake up before dawn to open doors again so the newbies can escape. Then in the next few evenings it's usually been the case that the new birds aren't allowed into the nestbox so are roosting elsewhere in the run so I scoop them up after dark and put them in with the others. In the past this can happen for a couple of nights or it can stretch out for a week or so until they're all in bed together at dusk.

Having a large run helps in the day - ours is quite big (7metres x 4 metres+) so they can all avoid each other should they need too - always having two sets of drinkers / feeders is important so the newbies can feed without having to run the gamut of the rest of the flock.

We've now got a cockerel - he keeps his flock in order and puts any bullies in their place which helps too. He also chaperones his ladies into bed in the evening which is quite sweet.

Chickens are ace. We've 6 girls of a variety of breeds and 1 huge Orpington cockerel.

They will be fine we have lots of chickens different ages and type they still pick on each other every now and then its as said above the pecking order but the gease soon put the hens back in place.

Never had to mix chickens, but mixing pigs into an established herd can be quite brutal and aggressive. Several days of intermittent fighting and running and hiding before the new social order is established, then they are all ok long term.

Mixing goats is less successful as they have very strong mini social groups within a herd that are immediate-family based. They will tend to sort out, but view newcomers as newcomers for extended periods of time and the sort of mini 'class system' never really goes away.

With all of this sort of thing, having space so that the birds or animals can run away or clearly withdraw from conflicts is very important. If they don't have enough space to show 'submission' or 'avoidance' the fighting will be much more frequent and can escalate as it pressures the top creatures to show more dominance because they see no signs of retreat in the lower animal.

gease soon put the hens back in place.

evil ****ers, geese.

I'll second everything woffle says. They'll sort themselves out but don't let them stay closely confined if you can help it as the young ones will appreciate the space! We've introduced three or four batches of new hens (usually point of lay - any younger and they stay separate until bigger) and fortunately not had any major probs. Keep an eye out and check they can get some food and aren't losing feathers to excessive pecking etc. But they will scrap. What's interesting is how the pecking order changes as years go by - the pair we introduced last year are now higher up than a pair of the original hens.