Topic: ASAP advice for introducing more rescue hens

[cocopops]

We already have 15 ex-bat ISA's (about 15 months old) who are great, pecking order sorted and doing well. 

My husband works as a carpenter for a agricultural building company has been sent to a related farm where the hens have been laying, but are now being sent for couscous ???  We are having four of the hens that managed to avoid the lorries.  They are about 36 weeks old and have 'red necks' from pecking at the feeders.

Any advice on how to introduce them to the rest of the girls would be appreciated.  We are having them tomorrow. 

[tilts]

Having kept hens for approx 20 years, i would say introduce during the night ~ let them wake up with each other but they must have alot to do in the morning, loads of food and water with lots of hanging cabbage/lettuce, bowls of spaghetti, cut grass sprinkled everywher ~ anything to detract attention from each other, the less time they have to spend worrying about pecking order, the less time they will spend finding the correct order!!! Good luck

[northener]

Its never good introducing new hens, always bullying going off and its never nice to watch. Best way we found was having a run along side of each other. Let them see each other for a couple of weeks, then let them all run together. Good luck.

[cocopops]

Thank you both for the advice,  I kept them hungry and the new hens had not been fed for ages apparently.  We fed them all together to see what happened.   If things had got out of hand we knew we could very quickly make an area for them away from the others.  Having 15 already it seems that the pecking order is so diverse that they just were nosey, but the ones on the lower end were really nice.  If tomorrow is not so good then I will split them.  Two are going to the son of our friends as a surprise for his 11th birthday as since most of his friends have hens he really wants some.  His dad has being building a hen house and run that he will surprise him with.  I am creating another thread with pics of the new girls.

Allie AKA Cocopops  xxx

[cocopops]

I was not to happy with a few of my bossier girls behaviour towards the new hens.  I have now split them up and with their own 'facilities' - what a morning!!!

Two of the girls are going to the son of a friend and I will keep the other two separated until they a stronger before I try to re-introduce them.