when to mix different ages and many other questions!

[juliachick]

Ok so we are really chicken obsessed like many of you. Here's what we have and where so far. I have 5-8wk barred rocks,1- 8wk silver spangled hamburg and 4-7 wk barnvelders in one make shift coop in my detached garage. 1-australorp, 1-black sex link, and 3 barred rock/americauna mixes that are all about 4 wks in a big guinea pig cage now turned brooder also in the garage. I bought today a day old buff cochin. I also have 7 black jersey giant eggs in the incubator. We are for sure that we have 4 roos and possibly 2 more (they were bought barred pullets but seem to have a bit more of a waddle and comb than the other 3???). We have two pekins day olds coming this week that I am hoping to put in with our little singe cochin (who currently only has a chicky stuffed animal friend) and is living in an aquarium brooder w/hood in our house. She was a total impulse buy from the feed store...I warned DH that he should go but NOOOO...have to work on my self control

Anyway, we've been taking our 8 wk olds olds outside to "play" in the grass for a few wks for bits of time and they love it. Today we let out the 4 wks olds for a tiny bit and kept them apart. Well, my 2 yr old decided to introduce one of the 4 wk roos to the 7 wk barnvelder roo and it was crazy...the poor little guy got pecked like 10 times in a few secs before I could grab it. My permanent coop should be done in about a week. It will be able to be divided w/chicken wire in two sections. I plan to let the little ones go in one area until they can be combined. Then the cochin will move out to the garage to the guinea pig cage and eventually when our j.giants hatch she will then go to the make shift coop so the j.giants can move in to the the guinea pig cage. So if you 've followed me this far ( I appreciate your patience) I have a few questions.

1)When can the 4 wks old move in w/the 8 wk olds? I know they need time to adjust to seeing each other but at what size will they be ready (till they are equal size?) I am questioning if I planned this right now because if I have to wait till they are adults I will have to build another temp coop for the next age group to go into since they won't move through the ranks quick enough.

2)Is my plan on keeping my ducks and cochin together doable (I know not to give medicated feed)? Has anyone done this?

3)I know we will not keep as many roos as we will end up with and plan to separate the ones we will be eating at some point. At what age do you think I should plan on them not tolerating each other any more? Right now we have a few in the 7-8 wk group that seem to get along for now.

4)How many roos have some of you had success w/together w/the flock?

5)The barnvelder roo seems to be the most aggressive and non-friendly with us. We want him to have a mating trio for next year so should I plan to give him a bachelor pad of his own and if so how big should one be for one roo?

I know I had another question and now it's gone...I'll post back if I think of it....thanks for any advice/experience you can share!!!

 

[Judy]

The only thing I actually know about all this is that you can give ducks medicated feed. I read on here that the medication used to be something one could not give ducks, but since they switched to amprolium, that is no longer true.

I have avoided trying to mix ages because of just such as this. I keep reading they all have to be full grown first. And roos vary so much; you have to go by what you see happening. Mine new bunch are 9 weeks, I am trying to get the roos to at least 12 weeks before butchering, and I keep wondering when I see the face-offs and such if we're going to make it all together.

I have 4 mature hens who live separately. I'm probably not even going to try to integrate them.