I have 5 chicks male and female that are about half grown. Will they be OK if I turn them loose with the other 12 hens and 1 rooster I already have?
I recently added some small chicks with a pair of older broiler chickens and had no problems at all, aside from from establishment of pecking order, a couple of days they were accepted fine. My experience may be the exception to the rule - the Poultry Board would be a good place to ask about this.
What do you mean by "turn loose"?? Are you free ranging?? I have "turned loose" chicks of the size you are speaking of in a free range situation without difficulty, but ran into problems with penned birds. What I have done since then is have sort of a "creep feeder" situation where the little chicks could get in but the bigger ones could not and they slowly got use to each other without problems. I would be most concerned about the young roosters if you were planning to grow them out for meat. They spend a great deal of time watching out of the senior rooster who wants them to just plain not be :no:
They are penned birds right now.No food to be found in the snow anyway. It sounds like the creep feeder is the way to go.
