Six Coop Etiquette Tips — Randy’s Chicken Blog

It’s your first day at the new job. You walk in to the building carrying your potted plant and the file box containing a few photos and your coffee cup. Everybody stares at you as you search for your new office. You eventually find your way and set your box and plant on your new desk. You wonder where the bathroom is. And the break room. And what you’re supposed to do next. The woman across the hall is staring at you, so you give her a tentative smile. She emits a little shriek and runs away down the hall. A group of gawkers begins to form just outside your office door and suddenly the beefy, deranged-looking guy in the back breaks free of the group, strides forward and punches you right in the face. What a nightmare!

Of course, it really is a nightmare—a fever dream. Because nothing like this would happen in real life! Unless you’re a chicken. This is exactly the sort of hazing every chicken can expect to undergo when introduced to a new flock. Chickens don’t punch, of course. They peck. To establish a pecking order. And there’s no way around that.

And that’s why you can’t just open the coop door, toss in a few new chickens and hope for the best.  It will be a stressful time for you, for your flock, and especially for the new chickens. But with a little planning and strategy you can make it a little less stressful.

Emily Post has written at length on proper introductions. She, without a doubt, would consider punching a new co-worker in the face to be a faux pas in the extreme. The rationale of Emily Post’s etiquette is to have rules and strategies for social situations so those situations will flow smoothly. Chickens, like people, are social animals. And if you’re prepared with some rules and strategies for introducing chickens, you can make those introductions flow smoothly.  Here are six:

Any new chickens should start out in a totally separate area from your flock for several weeks. This gives you time to check out and treat the new birds for any diseases, lice or mites that you may discover they’re carrying. These new chickens will be stressed by their move, which makes them more susceptible to disease. If you’re starting with baby chicks, they’ll need their own area because they’re tiny and vulnerable. Babies need to grow to at least three-months-old before they can be integrated into your flock. Once they’ve reached that age, they’ve developed their full set of feathers, they no longer need a heat source, and they’re approaching the size of the adult chickens they’re about to meet.