Introducing a new hen to a flock of three

[Campingholidays]

Hi all,

At the beginning of this week I had four lovely girls - two Pekins and two Polish. Sadly one of our Polish was taken by a fox, leaving my kids utterly heartbroken as she was the favourite hen, very affectionate, handleable and adored by the kids. We’ve since reinforced security of the coop (to fortress status) and it’s crossed my mind that perhaps another hen may be called for for the following reasons -

• we originally only bought two hens (the Pekins) but chicken math was mathing and a year later decided to buy two more (the Polish). Integration was extremely smooth with no issues even though the two individual groups of hens were very bonded to each other.

BUT now the remaining Polish is noticeably and loudly pining for her lost buddy.

My questions are -

• how difficult would it be to introduce a single hen to our small flock? I’m aware that my Polish girl may not bond with another but she is obviously lonely. She also is annoyingly top of the pecking order.
• one of my Pekins is in a broody phase at the moment - she isn’t aggressive at all but I worry that introducing a new hen at the moment would disrupt things.

So should I wait until my Pekin is out of a broody phase and attempt an introduction? Should I leave things be for a while and reassess in a month or so? Would the suggestion be to add another Polish to the group or would another Pekin (or silkie or other bantam breed) be fine?

Unfortunately space is an issue otherwise I’d add another 4 and hope that my poor pining Polish would integrate well into a larger flock.

Thank you so much if you’ve made it this far, any advice or tips gratefully received!

I would think it bit of a risk introducing a single hen to a flock, it could end up with some pretty serious bullying. If doing it, id possibly take out the Polish, bond her with the new chook and then re introduce them back in as a pair

You'll need to split the flock and then merge it again. Do you have any extra housing & runs? Your new hen(s) will need to be quarantined first for bio security, then split the flock, and mix the new hens, then merge the flock. You're probably looking at a couple of months with quarantine.

We introduced 2 newbies to our two and even now 1 year down the line they all just stay in their couples one even still tries to bully them. Getting another to go with the newbie would at least let them have their own flock together. Deffo don’t do it whilst having a broody hen.
Edited to say we put the two newbies in a crate for a couple of weeks but in sight of the original hens. They integrated well but occasionally as
mentioned our one hen bullies especially over food.