[Colernehens]

We have eight chicks. 3 are 8 weeks old, 2 are 10 weeks and 3 are 7 weeks.

The 7 week old chicks are much smaller that the others (i'm not convinced from the feathering that they are that old, but they were off heat and being fed growers, and the breeder assured me they were 7 wks) and as a consequence they are being bullied by the others.

Although its early days; (we only got them yesterday) this morning one of the very little ones, whilst being chased by one the others tried to get through the weld mess on the run and very nearly killed itself trying, thankfully I was there.

I don't think my nerves can cope with that for the next week or so whilst they sort out their pecking order, so I need to do something 

If I was to separate the 3 smallest ones during the day so they can get to food and water without threat and give them time to grow, if put the two runs side by side so they all have sight of each other all day, do you think I can still roost them all in the same coop at night? Or would it be better to give them a couple of weeks on their own whilst they grow a bit, (keeping the runs next to each other in the day) and then introduce them to the coop once they are bigger?

Also would there be any advantage in mixing chick crumb in their growers for a while if they could younger than I was told?

Thank you, advice always welcome, even if its just to know I'm not bonkers getting this worried 

[gracie]

When we got our youngest chicks they were only just 6 weeks and the others were 9 weeks old so my husband put a partition made of weld mesh in the coop so they all slept near each other but couldnt get to each other, this helped them get used to each other without the fighting.
After a week i let them all free range together under close supervision, for an hour the first day, so that they were together on neutral territory. There was a bit of pecking, seemed quite nasty but no blood loss, but i would say it took less than a week of slowly letting them be together more and more before they finally became a gang rather than 2 chicks and 2 chicks.
The smaller ones occasionally get a peck on the head but fortunatley we dont have too much fighting, im not even 100 % sure of the pecking order as they seem quite friendly the majority of the time

[Colernehens]

Thank you for that suggestion.

The three little ones have taken to sleeping in the nest boxes today, as although I have moved the three biggest ones into a smaller run, so it was 2 against 3 (these being the very little ones), the two have not allowed the 3 out of the coop. (I have put food and water in there so they are ok pottering in the coop and being left alone), so I could put some weld mesh in front of the nest boxes tonight ( i have some with much smaller holes so no stuck heads  )that way they still get to know each other but the little ones would be safe. Then I could just lift them out in the morning into a separate run and lift them back at night.

Might just work

[gracie]

Thats exactly what we did, lifted them into the far side of the run in the morning. we just separated that with some weld mesh. The only difficulty was it thwarted the social life for a week as the newbies couldnt get into the coop at night as we had to lift them in and couldnt bare to think of them outside getting cold, but it was worth it in the end. heres a photo.