CHICKEN MATH Introducing new chickens to you flock
Chicken maths normal refers to the owner of a flock of chickens not knowing how many chicken he or she currently has. But when introducing more chickens to your flock, you’re going to have to do a head count.
There is a general rule of thumb when introducing new chickens, you introduce the same number of new chickens as you have in your flock. If you have four chickens, you will need to introduce another four chickens to your flock.
To do this you will need another hen house and an area of fenced off space, side by side so the girls can see each other. It must have a large enough space that they can walk around, the old bunny hutch with not do.
Start off with the new girls in their new coop.
It is best to pickup your new birds in the late afternoon and pop them straight into the coop. When they wake up in the morning, the coop is their home and their reference point. Doing this will save you the drama of having to find where they are sleeping the next evening and putting them into the coop. Although sometime your hens are a little daft and you may still need to do this.
The Swap
Give them four days to a week and then swap the chickens.
Your originals chickens will move to the new coop and the new chickens in the original coop.
Give them another four days and then split the two flocks.
You will then have two original girls with two new girls. Do this on a weekend when you can watch how they interact with each other. It’s also good to check that all the chickens made it into the coop, because sometime a chicken will sit at the door stopping the newer members coming in.
Once your chickens are well aquatinted, put them together in the original coop.
This method means that they have had time to establish it before they were all in together. There will still be a time where they establish a pecking order. It is helpful to have seperate feeding and drinking spots to give them the feeling of abundance rather than having one of your groups dominating it.
Yes this is painful and slow but its the best way to go about it.