New chicken, not accepted

[Hiccupiscal]

can't belive MN has a chicken board, just found this and its great...

Advice please, we have 2 x chickens who are now aprox 7 weeks old. Brought at the same time.
A couple of days ago we visited the shop for supplies for the chickens and came back with another one I fell in love with!

Advice at the shop was that they would be fine as around the same age.

Wrong.

New chicken is clearly a few weeks younger, and smaller. Old chickens hate new chicken, our white chicken pecked new chicken so badly her head started bleeding.

Of course, we separated them - old chuck are now in outside hutch and poor new chuck in is the incubator hutch in the spare bedroom.

Yesterday took new chuck outside and let them all free range. New chuck followed DP and I around, sitting on out laps, shoulders or knees and.crying for us whenever we went out of sight!

This adorable, however, not ideal as we need new chuck to be in garden with the other girls. Not to mention she must be very lonely on her own.

Advice on how to get the old chucks to accept her? Im so scared theyre going to peck her until some serious damage is done.

Thanks all.

Anyone? We still have a chicken in our spare room!

Your new chook needs to be nearly the same size before she can be mixed with them, or she will be incessantly bullied.

Also, and I realise that it’s too late now, but you never want to bring in 1 additional hen to an existing group... it will always be bullied. Sometimes, as a last resort, you can separate one from your flock, to be with your new one for a bit, so you’re then bringing 2 into the main group, but it won’t always work. Also you only have a total of 3, so difficult to do this.

Anyway, can you arrange your fencing so that the 2 existing ones and your new one can see each other but are physically separated? And then look to remove the physical separation in a couple of weeks? When you do take that step, put the new one in the coop just as they’re going to sleep, because they can’t see in the dark.

Get some purple spray for any wounds as, once chickens see blood they’ll keep pecking.

Also, you could join a chicken group on Facebook, like Chicken Keeping UK.

You always need to get either the same amount of newbies as the oldies or one more (so you should go get another hen or even 2 more). This makes the 2 old ones feel inferior to the 2 or 3 new ones and there will be no bullying. Could you go and get more?

You really need to either go and get 2 more so you can introduce 3new birds to your 2 or be prepared to have her in your spare room for another 2 months until she matures. Never put 1 in with an existing flock. They can be brutal.
There are anti-peck sprays on the market and beak -buffers, which can make introduction easier, but even with these it can take a week or so of slow, staggered introduction until the new flock bonds.