Introducing New Chickens to the Flock

Gardening in Middle Tennessee
Generally speaking, I prefer to raise chicks up in the late spring and early summer so that they are ready to integrate into the flock while the weather is still warm. There are a number of advantages to growing out chicks during this time. One is that they can come out of the brooder sooner, both in terms of permanantly being out of the brooder and for enjoying short excursions outside of the brooder. Another is that they will likely skip their first autumn molt. The important one for me, however, is that they will come into lay during winter and all of those young chicken hormones will keep them laying right through the dark of winter. The chicks in this video were born in October and I can say from experience that it takes more feed and more time to raise up babies during that time. And due to cold weather, the babies could only be outside to hang out acroos the fence from their future flock-mates for only a few hours or so during the heat of the day.