Birds of a feather truly do stick together. That’s why it can be a challenging task to bring new birds into your established flock. New flock members often get picked on and harassed by hens who don’t want to share their territory. For a seamless integration of new birds into your flock, there are a couple of tricks that work well. All you need is patience and some ninja-like moves.
To start with you want to make sure that your coop/run setup is large enough to accommodate your exsiting flock and the new birds that you are adding. Each adult bird will need 3-4 square feet of space. If bringing in birds from another flock, make sure they have been through a quarantine period of at least 30 days and are healthy.
You’ll want to introduce birds to each other gradually and let them interact without the opportunity of pecking or abuse. To do this, place your new birds inside the run or coop in an area where they can see and get to know each other but where they are still separated. A wire cage works well. However, you can also put new birds into a dog crate or use chicken wire to fence off a portion of the area and make two separate spaces.
Make sure new chicks are fully feathered when introducing them to your flock. It is also important to acclimate the chicks to the coop temperature. You want to keep new birds in their own area. Let everyone get to know each other for at least two weeks. Patience is key here, so don’t rush the “getting to know you” phase.
The ninja moves come into play when introducing new birds into the existing flock. Wait until night, when it’s dark and all birds are sleeping comfortably. Moving quickly and quietly, you want to take the new birds from their resting spot and put them on the roosts next to your other sleeping birds. When the birds wake up in the morning they are next to another hen that they are familiar with (because they’ve been in close proximity, although separate areas, for several weeks) and they are often tricked into thinking that they’ve always been together.
Carefully monitor everyone during the next week as the pecking order is reorganized. This approach should give you a fairly seamless merging of your flock. Additonally, it never hurts to have some flock treats on hand as a reward!