Introducing new chickens

[Empress13]

We recently lost two of our chickens so only have 2 left. We have built an all singing all dancing coop in our garden and are fetching 2 new girls next weekend. Our 2 remaining are currently housed on some land that we own so we will be moving them to our home. Just worried about them not accepting the new girls? How is best to introduce them? Any time of the day that is best? Was thinking maybe at dusk when our two are asleep and not so alert? Any advice would be welcome thank you

Don't put them in together straight away. you need to provide some temporary housing and a fenced off area of the pen where the chickens can see each other but not touch each other, birds can be vicious.

Putting them all in at one go can work but could cause serious problems too. A slow introduction with birds of any kind is better than lumping them in and hoping for the best.

You need to quarantine the new birds for at least a month. Keep your old birds where they are and don't put the new birds in the new pen either. When the quarantine is up, put them all into the new accommodation. Keep an eye on them whilst they work out the new pecking order. If any of them have overly red bits, use purple spray. If you are rural, consider getting a cockerel, they are great peacekeepers.

Good point especially in bird flu season.

@MarkingBad Yes, there's a tendency amongst small keepers to think that they don't need to follow basic bio security measures. I've always taken the view that it doesn't matter whether you have 2 or 200 animals, everyone should be responsible. Gotta love a Virkon foot dip. 😁 (Also recommend Red Top Fly Traps).

I have small Eglu and run within my bigger enclosure that we use to integrate the new arrivals. They spend a day or two in there.

That's true, and I also think there isn't a lot of information about poultry keeping for garden flocks outside of the coffee table "good life" style books where everything is lovely and not image of what a real chicken attack looks like or how to deal.

But then I forgot the quarantine advice myself so I can't say too much!

By way of update we put a dog crate in our run with bedding food water etc just so that our older girls could see and get to know the new girls. Did this for about a week then let them into the run. Bit of noise from our one dominant girl and the odd peck around food but suffice to say they are now all getting on fine. Funnily enough the 2 older girls sleep in their nests (always have they are cleaned thoroughly every day) and the 2 newbies huddle together on the roosting bar so cute. Two newbies we reckon are approx 19 weeks now but not had any eggs yet. Can’t remember what age our older 2 started laying when we had them ? Does anyone know when they should start laying? So all good😁

Excellent news I'm glad they've settled in
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It often depends on what breed of chicken as to when they start laying, pure breeds often mature later than hybrids and commercial hybrids earlier still. So anywhere between 4 and 6 months, for you that should be quite soon as they've had a bit of disturbance but now settled that can delay laying for a short time