New Chickens added to our flock

We received new chickens! There are now 13 new laying hens added to the flock. A friend of a relative informed us that they are looking to re-home their flock. So of course we agreed to take them in. Our coops still have plenty of room.

I was excited to find that the flock had multiple breeds. Since our current flock was mostly Red Cross and Rhode Island Reds, it is a pretty red flock. The new birds did have about half of a red breed, but it also had Barred Rock and Wyandotte. It is nice to see these white and black speckled hens running around.

Acclimation

In order to get the new hens acclimated to the existing flock we added them to the coop after dark. The next day we kept all the coops closed. We did not allow anyone to free range. Later that night I opened the coops to allow them to forage for about two hours. The new hens did not want to adventure far from the roosts. They stayed close in the barn/coop.

After the first day we felt it was comfortable to let them free range with the rest of the flock. The first week was a little difficult to put some of the new hens away. They would walk into the hardware cloth wall between coops when going in for the night. I little sad but I would just pick them up and move them to the correct coop. We plan on adding a door in the corner between the coops to allow the birds to venture between coops on days they are stuck inside.

Currently

We received new chickens and it is great. Currently all the hens are getting along with very little bullying. Yes, a pecking order is real and the hens tend to fight a little bit to establish the pecking order. Now they are all in line and get along fine. They do seem to enjoy the bean field and shy away from the llamas.

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