[Vi]

Hi all,

My baby chooks are about 5 or 6 weeks old now and mostly feathered, I think the littlest one is actually going to be a rooster (any difference betwenn a rooster and a cockerel?) because his/her comb is bigger than the other two and this one used to be the smallest of the three and is now the biggest even though the feather development is still a bit behind.  Anyway.....  they're getting a bit big for sleeping in the box in the house now and would like to introduce them to the other older chooks. 

They've been spending their days outside in the chicken tractor and the older birds have had a good look through the avery mesh every day and the 'boss' hen has had a peck at them a couple times through the mesh. 

We let the two sets of birds interact this morning in the main chook pen's 'yard' and it didn't go all that well.  Goose the top hen was pretty aggressive the other two just watched.  Is it too soon to introduce the three newbies?  They've got no mum to protect them, just me so i'm not sure about letting them all freerange together.

I'm thinking about putting the chicken tractor right next to the older chooks pen, right now it's about 3 meters away, in sight but not really close. 

I've had a search through the older posts in this forum, but most of the advise is for chicks with broody hens or older birds being brought into the new flock.

[SMD66]

Hi all,

My baby chooks are about 5 or 6 weeks old now and mostly feathered, I think the littlest one is actually going to be a rooster (any difference betwenn a rooster and a cockerel?)

Sorry can't advise about the introductions but the difference between cockerel and rooster;
when the settlers went from Uk to America they used the english term, 'cockerel'  In yrs to come when the Americans were so puritanical they couldn't bring themselves to say cockerel, it sounded too rude, so they changed it to 'rooster'.  So it depends whether you are British or American, or what you choose to use!

[Vember]

Hi Vi

I think it depends on the size of the birds, if your introducing small bantams to large fowl then it may be best to leave them a bit longer.
My cochins started mixing with the adult birds at the 5/6 week mark and had no problems apart from an odd peck


Sarah

[Vi]

Excellent!  I have no idea what breed they are, being strays and all.  I guess I'll wait until they're bigger and can stand up for themselves. Will have to get OH to modify the chicken tractor so they can sleep outside safely. 

I've got a couple photos I can share now but I haven't worked out the 'how' bit yet.  Also the photo is pretty big (File size) I've got to work out how to make it smaller.  Hopefully someone can give a bit of insight to the breed of the young ones.

The older chooks are pretty big, they're the same as the red/brown ones on the front page of the poultry pages intro page (again, have a photo ready just have to do some tweeking)

I think I'll continue to use cockerel for now.   

[Vember]

Tells you all about putting photo's on here Vi
http://chat.allotment-garden.org/index.php?topic=19476.0

Sarah

[Vi]

Cool that was fast!, 128kb, I'll have to take the photos to my computer to make smaller, (they're currentlly 4mb) then give it a go