Introducing a new chicken - it's seems like war!

[frazzeled]

We had two lovely windy brown chickens, about six months old. Sadly one just keeled over and died. After a week or so we have replaced her with a new one. We have introduced them slowly, given them space etc. but the older one simply will not let the other out the coop. Any sign of her venturing out and is viciously attacked! The new one will now not even venture out the nest box! Any ideas? I know ideally we should have got more than one extra, but a little limited on space so don't want them overcrowded.

I was told to put talc on all the chickens, and shut them up together at night. I don't get the talc bit, the reasoning being the talc makes them all smell the same, and they bond as they roost together. I have to say, it did work, and I successfully introduced 2 new birds to my tiny flock.

Hi Frazzeled did you try the talc tip? We have just bought 2 new chooks to add to our existing pair and Miss Millie has turned really aggressive.

I will buy some talc and try it but if anyone has any other tips that would work I'd be really grateful - The only advice I can see online is to keep them apart which isn't really possible in our run.

Can you take the older one out the coop for a day? Even if it's just in a box for one day? When I introduce new chooks whichever of the older ones is the worst bully gets taken out and put in an empty rabbit run for a few days. They're a lot better behaved when they go back.

Thank you VivaLaBeaver, I'll try it. They had the night locked up together last night which seemed to go ok, at least Sir Fluffington and Maz have survived. (Named by my dds).

How many chooks do you have? Do you always introduce more than one at a time?

I would agree with Viva to remove the bully. They fucking hate that, but then will go back into the group afterwards with usually no problems.

I've had various numbers of chickens over the year but have always bought a minimum of two new ones. Maybe it's not as important as you only had one existing one.