How to Introduce New Chickens to a Flock
Learn about the pecking order, how to introduce new chickens to a flock, and what to watch for when they find their place in this social structure.
by Wren Everett
When it comes to welcoming new girls to the coop, chickens aren’t a friendly bunch. At all. Instead of being a loving, happy family, first introductions more closely resemble the worst of a college sorority hazing. Seasoned chicken keepers have learned to expect the fighting, kicking, and feather-flying that ensues when strange birds are put into an established coop. For the first-timer, however, it can be distressing to release chicks you’ve tenderly raised to pullethood into the gauntlet of pecking and bullying.
Having survived many a chicken-introduction, I want to share some of my best tips and tricks for how you can help ease the bumpy ride between “new chicken” and “member of the flock.”
What’s Going On
Chickens naturally form a flock around their rooster and/or top hen, and that flock is made up of a naturally established social structure referred to as the “pecking order.” Like all social animals, chickens need to know their place in that order and will devote their energy to getting their place figured out before the flock reaches equilibrium. In an established flock, the top hen (usually the biggest or most mature bird) gets first dibs on the food and is respected by the lower-ranking birds.
When a new bird or set of birds is suddenly added to the group, chaos erupts because the chickens need to figure out where everyone stands all over again. The pecking order is called that because, well, it uses a lot of head-pecking (and a fair amount of kicking) to get worked out. The top-ranking birds will be some of the biggest bullies because they’re making sure the new girls are “informed” of who’s on top. The lowest-ranking birds may also be some of the biggest bullies because they suddenly can advance their rank over the new, scared birds.
When adding new hens or pullets, you’ll likely notice that your established rooster doesn’t care — more girls in his harem just make him more powerful. He will be threatened, however, by the presence of a new rooster. If you have at least 10 hens per rooster, they may be able to keep the fighting to a minimum — especially with more docile breeds like Australorps or Orpingtons. There is danger, however, of real, spur-stabbed damage being done between two equal-sized, equal-aged roosters with too few hens to share and dominance to establish — particularly if they’re aggressive breeds. While I’ve had two roosters eventually get along (they were both Orpington mixes), there’s no guarantee that they will.
Introduce at the Right Age and Size
Size is important to chickens, so you should only introduce new birds that are close to the size of the birds already present in the flock. This is easy to do with standard-sized adult birds, of course, but, when it comes to pullets, be sure they’re near full size and already fully feathered out. “Eight weeks” is sometimes given as the recommended minimum age, but this doesn’t take the slower growth rates of heritage breeds into account. I personally wait more than three months before releasing my mostly grown heritage birds into the coop for the first time. If you doubt that your young birds are big enough, wait another week or three — if you can. When it comes to new chicks facing an introduction, bigger is always better.
If you’re introducing bantam chickens to standard-sized birds, watch carefully. I’d be cautious about mixing a tiny new bird into a standard-sized flock, unless the flock was comprised of naturally docile breeds.
Don’t Send a Pullet in Alone
I always make sure to introduce at least two or more new pullets to my coop at a time, never one alone. Multiple new, scared birds help spread out the aggression of the flock at large. At night, even if they haven’t found where to roost, the new pullets will sleep beside each other, as well, especially if they were brooded together — I like to think they find comfort with each other during this stressful time.
Multiple Sources of Water and Food
Most of the jostling and pecking seems to take place at mealtimes — food is, after all, the most important thing to a chicken. If all your birds are fed at a single location, you may find that the established birds won’t let the new birds get a mouthful. I try to ameliorate the stress by providing multiple sources of both food and water in several places through the coop when new birds are introduced. By spreading the flock out like this, the new birds have a better chance of getting a bite to eat without being chased away.
That said, I also keep a close eye on the new birds’ crops at the end of the day. In my coop, the new arrivals don’t always roost with the rest at first, usually lingering behind to find forgotten morsels. I check the new girls at evening, apart from the rest. If their crops feel mostly empty, I give them an extra feeding that the main flock doesn’t have access to. I usually only have to do this for a few days, until the pullets start to figure out how to get their food with the bigger birds — but it gives me peace of mind.
Vertical Elements and Hiding Places
Though observing your birds is always important, you can’t babysit them all day — we all still have to go on with our daily tasks in the meantime! To help the new birds when I’m not there, I make sure they have places they can escape to when they get pecked. I’ve placed lots of branches and sections of stumps throughout my coop, so the lighter-bodied pullets can flutter to relative safety above the flock when they get fed up with being told what losers they are. I particularly favor stout cedar branches from the woods nearby — they don’t rot easily, and they’re strong enough to support chickens of all weights.
Embrace the Process … Unless There’s Blood
At the end of the day, no matter what you do to soften the blows, chickens are going to act like chickens — not people. They’ll harass and jump on the new birds any chance they get, for the first few days, and your coop inductees are going to spend those days running for cover, snatching food any chance they get, and hiding in what looks like terror. Ninety-nine times out of 100, there’s nothing you need to do or even should do between the chickens themselves. You’ll just have to embrace the process and let it run its course. As violent as the chickens seem, they’re not actually trying to hurt each other — they’re just throwing their weight around.
That said, there’s only one situation where your human intervention will be needed, and that’s if there’s blood. If a new chicken ends up getting hurt during all the rough-and-tumble and is bleeding, remove her immediately. Chickens will peck at bright, shiny blood incessantly, and can turn a small wound into a potentially fatal injury in short order. Isolate the hurt chicken until she fully recovers, then try introducing her to the coop again. In my eight years of raising chickens, I’ve never had this happen, but it’s worth mentioning.
How Long Does it Take for Hens to Accept New Hens?
As awful as the first few days may seem, rest assured that chickens don’t want to waste energy being jerks any longer than is needed to reestablish their social order. Once the fierce introductions have been made, feathery butts have been kicked, and the new girls know their places, peace will return. In my flock, it typically takes under two weeks for new birds to be fully accepted. And, I must say, it’s always a nice sight to shut down the coop for the night and finally see both new and old birds roosting side-by-side, as if they’d always been there.
At least, until next summer, when the next batch of pullets are big enough for their own violent meet-and-greet!
Wren Everett and her husband quit their teaching jobs in the city and moved back to the land on 12 acres in the Ozarks. There, they’re learning to live as modern peasants: off-grid, as self-sufficient as possible, and quite happily.
Originally published in the June/July 2025 issue of Backyard Poultry and regularly vetted for accuracy.
