Help with managing my flock.

[darrellwaldrip]

I have a small flock of chickens totaling 11 (with 9 hens and 2 roosters). I started with 6 chickens - 1 rooster and 5 hens. There are 9 adults and 2 pullets. The two runs are perfect as I have separated all of the adults in one coop and run, and then placed the 2 small teenagers in the second run.
MY QUESTION IS: There’s one hen that is much younger than any of the other adult chickens. I can tell because the cone and waddles are much smaller than the adults. Should I separate the one hen that is much younger - and place it with the other 2 teenager chicks? They have their own separate coop and run. Please let me know what you think. Darrell

 

[FunnyBunny89]

Only if they are having trouble getting along. If not, then I wouldn't bother. Also, comb and wattle development can vary amongst pullets of the same age. I have 4 pullets I bought together as fuzzy chicks (so, only a day or 3 at most old) and two of them are Wyandottes, two of them are Olive Eggers; the W pullets matured at different rates, where one had a much larger and more vivid comb and wattle than the other, yet the other started laying first. The same applies to my OEs; only one is laying so far, and the other one's comb is taking longer to grow. So, hormonal maturation can vary pretty significantly.

 

[rosemarythyme]

Any particular reason you want to move the 1 bird to the other set up? If both sides are currently fine in terms of behavior and space, you may end up inadvertently throwing off the pecking order in one group or the other by moving her. Generally things will settle after some kerfluffle but if there's no real reason to move her it'd probably be easiest to leave things as is.

 

[Ridgerunner]

I agree with the others. If it ain't broke don't fix it. If they are getting along now you risk creating conflict and problems by changing things around.

I'm not looking at that chicken but different chickens grow different sized combs and wattles. You may have other reasons to think that chicken is younger but to me comb and wattle size is not something I'd pay much attention to.