[cejx]

I have a new single hen arriving tonight - I'm taking her on as her two friends were foxed last week.  She is a Blue Maran and I'm integrating her with 5 ex-batts.

Should I keep her quiet in the shed tonight as she'll be pretty stressed - and attempt to pop her in with the girls tomorrow?

I'm planning on keeping her in a puppy crate for a couple of days in full sight of the others whilst she gets used to things.

Any advice welcomed.

Claire

[bantam novice]

Hello Claire,
you will need to quarentine her for about two weeks before trying to integrate her with your other girls.
The puppy crate is a good idea to keep her separate but can you isolate a run area for her?
When you do introduce her do it at night when they are all sleepy and put her on the perch next to your other girls.
Keep some purple spray ready because establishing pecking order can get quite nasty.  If blood is drawn you will need to disguise the colour to stop the other hens pecking at the area.
I'm sure you'll be getting helpful advice from more experienced people.  In the meanntime good luck and keep us posted 

[cejx]

spray and anti peck at the ready!  She will be able to go into a portion of the run, and we hope to put her in with Matilda who is the least crazy of all the ex-batts as part of the integration in a few days.

10 mins to go!  eek!

[cejx]

Betty arrived last night and we let her settle in the shed in a box.

Woke her this morning when we got the others out and they all went beserk!  Betty is in the pup crate for today, but the screeching and skwarking, OMG!!  We had to hastily put sorry notes through the neighbours letterboxes and give them eggs just to keep them happy!

I've never heard noise like it!  Thankfully Betty is massive, so hopefully she'll hold her own when finally put in with the other crazy ex batts!

[bantam novice]

Oh good luck.    

Things usually settle down after the initial establishing of the pecking order.  Very sensible to use eggs to sweeten the neighbours.

[RebeccaM]

Hi,   We introduced 5 new chickens to 4 well establish ones. I firstly tried it without separating them but that didn't go down too well with the older chickens and they wouldn't let the new ones near the food so after a bit of research I found out that established chickens don't like the smell of new chickens and if they are a different colour chicken they feel threaten by them.

So I put some see through fencing across the coup so they could see and get used to each other. They all went into their sleeping bit at night ok and then I would separate them again in the morning. I did this for 2 weeks and after that they got on just fine.

If we get anymore I will defo do the same as it worked really well