The Backyard Flock: Merging flocks

Looking down the road, once your chicks have reached the age of 12 weeks or so, if you have an existing flock, you will want to move the young ones in with them. These can be trying times in the life of a pullet, as there will be resentment by the older girls and a great deal of bullying until a new pecking order is established.

One recognized method for introducing a new chicken into an existing flock is to place the chicken in the coop at night while it is dark. Presumably, in the morning the chickens will wake up and not notice that there is a newcomer in their midst. If that sounds nutty to you, you won’t get any argument from me. Chickens are especially good at recognizing each other and forming bonds. Springing a new chicken on them like that is probably going to get the new one hurt. You might also notice that I have been talking about the introduction of just one chicken. Imagine if your girls woke up in the morning and found six new chickens in the coop with them. You can be sure they would declare war.

My own method is to introduce the new chickens in a safe setting, giving them a chance to socialize with their older sisters. A few weeks before the intended merger, I set up a temporary chicken run right next to the permanent one and sharing a fence with it. It is important for the older girls to see the young ones over a period of time, without being able to get at them.

At first there will be curiosity and then there will be harassment and threats through the fence. Some of the chickens will take a fighting stance at the fence, puffing up their feathers and throwing their chests at them. The young ones will be confused and frightened, but will get used to it. This behavior will decrease over time. When you finally put the young chickens in with the older ones at least they will be familiar. There will still be bullying and pecking order issues, there is no way to avoid that completely, but there will be a lot less bloodshed.

The younger ones will not try to defend themselves and will either run or exhibit submissive behavior. They will have to wait to eat until the others are done feeding. They will have to wait outside until the older girls are settled in for the night, before being able to get into the coop. There will often be one particularly resentful biddy that will ignore her instinct to go in at sunset in order to guard the door and block the little ones from entering. These chickens you have loved and cared for so much can be incredibly cruel. I have seen one of my favorite girls hold down another chicken and peck at her unmercifully. It’s like watching your children fight - it hurts to watch.

Sometimes the young ones will try to sleep outside, roosting in a tree or bush, rather than go through the ordeal of trying to gain entrance to the coop. It is important to take a head count every night and, if anyone is missing, find her and put her back in the coop in the dark. There have been nights when I have plucked three or four chickens out of my lilac bush and returned them to the dozing flock. It is important to be persistent in this for two reasons: if you leave them outside, they might fall prey to a raccoon or other predator and, if you let them have their way, they will never become truly merged in the flock.

Eventually, it will all work out, but these will be trying times for both the chickens and their owner. I look at it like sorority hazing - soon they will all be sisters.