Is it okay to keep a pair of hens?

[FioFio]

I am quite new to chicken keeping, so do bear with me. I bought a trio of hens from a local breeder, all wormed and vaccinated, 2 rangers and a columbian blacktail (is that different from a ranger? I don't know, it had a black tail) anyway blacktail was very stressed out by being moved and despite my best efforts in feeding her up, visits from the chicken man, tonics etc. she died :( The other two seem very healthy and a bit mad and seem to keep each other company but my chicken man said having two is not a very good thing to do and it's best to have three or four.

Could someone please explain to me why this is? I am a bit pre menstrual at the moment and worrying about everything atm

It's simply so that if one dies you don't get a lonely hen

I have no idea - sounds like bollocks to me. I had a pair of hens and Omlet only used to sell pairs of hens - they were perfectly happy for 6 years.

I now have 3 but only because there was extra room.

Yours will be fine

it seems quite difficult to introduce other hens and I am a bit concerned I might get one that is ill or one that gets stressed again and dies on me. My ds1 was devastated poor thing. I was reading on-line and you can only introduce them at night? and only introduce the same colour? as chickens only like their own (bizarre!)
or is this bollocks as well?:o

It's fine to keep two hens together. However when one dies, it can cause a bit of a mad scramble to find a new friend for the remaining hen, which is why I prefer to keep three.

The bit about them needing to be the same colour is a load of bollocks. I've introduced black, white, grey, brown, blue-laced red etc. etc. to each other and it's always been fine.

I've previously written about introducing new hens here www.mumsnet.com/Talk/chicken_keepers/1451601-Introducing-new-hens - there's a fair amount of detail, but the basic principle is to let them see each other but be in physical contact for a few days, and then do a full on physical introduction. This can be done at night (the principle being that they will wake up and think that the new hen has always been there . . . I only did that once, after a few days of introductions, and it didn't work), but it can also be done during the day (when supervision is easier).

thank you boomting, that's really helpful :)

yes, it's fine.

the main reason to have at least 3 (apart from the extra eggs!) is that if one dies, you're not left with one hen.
and it's a proper pin to get another hen integrated.

they're flock birds, you see, they don't like being alone.