intro's to one old chook, no seperate accomodation.

[ditavonteesed]

lost another chook last week leaving me down to one, I was planning on doing intros in a month or so but obviusky have to change the time scale. anyone done the chuck them in at dusk and eerything will be fine method? I dont have any spare accomodation and not really sure what to do, dont want to leave twinkle on her own too long as she seems glum.

also cant decide how many to get, was thinking 4 or 5. (got a cube with2 extesions so plenty of room)

Plenty of room for that many. If they're all from one flock I'd be worried that they might gang up on your old girl. Can you rent an eglu (omlet) for a few weeks to put your girl in whilst the newbies and her eyeball?
I have had feathers flying with the chuck em in method. With girls at pol it has always taken about 3 weeks to ensure a smooth transition.

If you do keep to cube only, you could put some chicken wire across the middle as a divide and then take your girl out overnight to start with and put her in a cost straw lined cat box in a safe place - ie downstairs loo away from other animals.

There is a lot of information on introductions on the omelet forum.

Just wanted to add that we used the 'leave them to it' technique before when we rushed for time. Cousins arrived on the doorstep with a cardboard box for me. 4 hens and a cockerel after we were down to 1 hen. They settled in well. Old Hen was still on top and the pecking order was a little violent, but she did well. 4 years on and she is still happy as larry. Though when we added more we did the seperate runs and shared overnight accomodation for a week before letting them get on with it. To me there seemed no difference as these hens all went in at the bottom of the order and worked a little up.

we ended up doing the leave them to it, no major problems, a couple fo scuffles but nothing to bad, no injuries and they were fine after a couple of days. Original hen is still top chook and efinatly bosses the others around a lot.