My three old girls (5 years old now) are only laying one egg between them a day so we picked up 4 new hens yesterday. They are approx 10weeks old so I guess it won't be till next year till we see eggs but that's not really a problem!
I have set them up in a spare Solway Mini coop in half of the run. The other older three have their Green Frog loft and the other half of the run. I've separated the run with red barrier fencing, the stuff you get on building sites but one of the new four has flown (twice now!) into the older girls run. Both times they have gone for her, but as i've been on hand to distract and grab nothing terrible has happened. I'll be increasing the height of the partition tomorrow... They can obviously see each other through the fencing and seem OK, looking at each other but no feather pecking.
Anyhow, on to a few questions...
How long will it take them to figure out that the coop is where they sleep?! Past two nights i've gone out and caught them and put them to bed. They are in a very small section of the run at the moment so it's a fairly easy task but i'd like to open more of the run up to them... Also, the big girls won't go to bed until the young girls are put to bed... find that a bit odd!
When can they be intergrated together? I didn't think that my chooks were very aggressive... robins and other birds eat their food all the time but when the little Exchequer leghorn got in they were on her! Obviously there is no real rush to integrate apart from the big girls getting some more space to run around in... I can let the big girls out to free range a few hours a day though when I am with them.
Lastly, one of the new girls has suffered a broken toe(s) at some point. That leg has a ring on it so I am sure the breeders knew (i'll be notifying them as well BTW). Do you think it will cause a problem in the future? She is not lame or anything...
Here is a pic of the new girls (names to be decided!)