It generally takes a few days to a couple of weeks, sometimes up to a month, for hens to fully accept new members, establishing a new pecking order after some initial squabbles, chasing, and establishing dominance, which is best managed with slow, supervised introductions using methods like visual separation first, then supervised mixing, to prevent serious injury.
Perhaps the most humane way to do this is to show dominance similarly to how you'd train a dog. For chicken domination, at first sign of attack, reach down, grab the bird by the feet, turn it upside down—ignore the squawking—and tuck it under your arm like a football.
The newbies will typically stay close to the playpen and maintain a safe distance from the flock initially, but eventually they will become comfortable and begin mingling freely.
Tips for Adding New Chickens to the Flock
Surviving chickens are often traumatized and may show signs of shock and emotional distress for several days to months following an attack.
Symptoms of shock
From these, 7 body signals indicative of a distressed or sick bird were identified: A dropped tail, a tucked head, (partially) closed eyes, an open beak to breathe, drooping wings, a crouched posture with legs bent and ruffled plumage (Table 2). These signals were used to create the Stressed Chicken Scale (Figure 1).
If you do notice one or two particularly aggressive chickens who are hounding the newcomers, remove the bullies to a dog crate away from the coop for a few days. Then try putting them back. That often alleviates the fighting, since now they have become the newcomers.
The 90/10 rule for feeding chickens means 90% of their diet should be a balanced, commercial feed (pellets or crumble) designed for their life stage, providing essential vitamins, minerals, and protein, while the remaining 10% can come from treats, scraps, garden forage, or scratch grains, ensuring treats don't dilute the crucial nutrients from their main diet for proper growth and egg production. This practice prevents overfeeding nutritionally weak extras and keeps hens healthy.
However, if the fighting continues it will be important to intervene to prevent harm or injury. Use distraction tactics to separate them; whistling, hand clapping, physically picking them up and placing them well apart. Put Vaseline on their combs to help stop aggressive beaks causing damage to vulnerable birds.
But in truth, chickens are inquisitive, social creatures who can become attached to each other and to humans. Chickens have friends and can even get along with other species, such as ducks and rabbits. Have you ever wondered how happy chickens can actually be, and how they show affection to each other and to humans?
Happier Hens
The hens experience a state of order and liberty that they didn't have before. Without a rooster, the most aggressive and dominant hen would usually take over and be a bully. With a rooster, everyone, even the weaker members of the flock, can rest easy.
Once established, social structure within a flock will remain stable until it is disrupted. Other possible causes of bullying could include introducing a new hen or hens; stress; boredom; overcrowding or illness.
Old English Game chickens are known for their intense aggression, especially among males. Like the Malay chicken, Old English Game chickens were originally bred for cockfighting.
The grounds are perfect for scooping like cat litter, and so you're able to remove most of the droppings from the coop on a daily basis really easily. Coffee is lightweight and dust-free, so it is more manageable than sand, which can't be composted or reused.
Carefully Introduce New Chickens: Wait until it's dark and the flock is roosting. Gently place the new chickens onto the roost. If you can, ensure that the new birds are calmly nestled near the existing flock without forcing them into close contact. Keep the lights off so they can't see each other.
Separating an overly dominant hen for a few days before reintroducing her can help reset her status in the pecking order, reducing her aggressive behavior. For more severe cases, applying anti-pecking spray to targeted birds can help deter pecking.
When they are sad, often let out very sad sounds that are unmistakable, the same way your dog might whimper if he is unhappy because he is hungry or needs to go outside. When I lost my favorite hen to a predator, her sister cried sad sounds for several days, and looked for her in all her favorite spots.
It's best to keep newcomers fenced off from the established birds for the first week, behind chicken wire where everyone can see and get used to each other. This also acts as a quarantine, in case any of the new bird are harbouring illness.
Introducing hens to an established flock will need patience, and often takes a couple of weeks to settle.
You totally can, but you do want them to be around the same age...a couple days difference is fine, but a couple weeks difference would be a problem.
A clean coop will help calm stressed chickens. Nesting Herbs and other calming herbs spread around of the coop and in dust bathing areas might also help your chickens to relax.
Symptoms of stress
All chickens found in retail stores are either inspected by USDA's Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) or by State programs which have standards equivalent to the Federal government. Each chicken and its internal organs are inspected for signs of disease.