Mixing Chicks with the Big Hens

beaky80
Apr 15
3 min read

It's still Baby Season at my house!

Hands gently cradle a small, black and white chick, creating a calm and nurturing scene. The background is softly blurred.

My loud, stinky chicks were placed in their "big girl" coop last week. They are loving the extra space to flap their wings and to take dirt baths in the sun.

https://video.wixstatic.com/video/84a231_c31b035abc1249eda918b70a1b1808b5/1080p/mp4/file.mp4

Every morning, when I open the door to the chicken run, the chicks run as fast as they can to their breakfast. It's so cute!

While buying chick food at the Tractor Supply last week, I noticed seven chicks in their metal bird pens were quite a bit larger than the day old chicks. I blogged about this last summer—if chicks look different from the rest of the chicks in their bird pen, they might be clearance chicks...but you have to ask!!

The chicks I noticed at Tractor Supply were already growing out of their fuzz and growing their first set of feathers. They also were trying to fly out of the bird pens, big show offs! The manager sold me these "older" chicks for $2 a piece compared to the original $7 a piece price. Woohoo!

I thought my new clearance chicks were about the same size as the chicks in my basement who were a month old. Once I mixed the two groups of babies together, my month old chicks were a way larger and they started to peck and hurt the smaller chicks (chickens are such bullies to smaller birds!).

So, I separated my two sets of babies. I sent the larger chicks to the coop outside and kept the clearance chicks in my basement until they grow...then I can mix the two groups together.

I'm super excited about my clearance chicks! They are Bantum Chicks—miniature chickens. Last year, my only Bantam hen (Blonde) died in a hawk attack, so I'm so glad to add more to my flock. Bantam hens are excellent Broody Mamas and fierce protectors—tiny but tough.

In about a week I'll mix my clearance chicks with my older coops outside. In about two weeks, I'll mix all my baby chicks with my 45 older hens.

Chickens gather near a wire cage in a rustic yard. Feathers are colorful with brown, black, and white hues. Hay and dry leaves cover the ground. — Maui, the Rooster, showing his ladies the new chicks. The babies are safely inside the baby coop away from the crabby ladies.

Mixing different flocks of chickens is challenging and MUST be done slowly. Chicks MUST be roughly 3/4 the same size as the larger chickens before mixing the two groups together. Two different chicken flocks should be able to see and interact with each other without being able to peck at each other.

My baby coop has a divider so the older hens have one part of the run and the chicks have another part. They nose each other through the chicken wire all day, getting to know each other. Once the chicks get a little bigger, I will then have the chicks and the older hens free range together.

I've found the free ranging different flocks of birds is the BEST way of creating one big happy family. When the chickens forage for bugs in the yard and take dirt baths together, a family bond takes over.

One more key to merging two chicken flocks together—The Rooster! Although roosters have a reputation of being meanies with attitude problems, they are big softies when it comes to baby chicks.

One of the jobs a good rooster takes pretty seriously—keeping the peace within the flock. He is the guardian of every member of the flock, including the big and the small. When the big girls pick on the chicks, he will put himself between them giving the chicks time to hide.

I saw this happen a couple days ago when one of my chicks escaped the baby coop when I had the door open. Maui, the best rooster of all time, babysat that escape artist until I caught her. The chick wasn't pecked on by the other hens because of Maui's excellent protection.

A round tray holds two rows of multicolored eggs, with browns and greens, on a kitchen counter. The background includes a container and cords. — More chicks coming soon....

Because I lost several birds last year due to old age and predator attacks, I'm restocking my flock. I started up the incubator again right after Easter, and next month I'll be able to add 10-15 more chicks to the Squawk Flock. As some of my girls are getting close to six years old, they lay fewer and fewer eggs in their old age. These younger chicks will keep my daily egg supply going strong especially when they start laying in July and August this year.