When is a good time to add new birds

[Lucylou]

I've been keeping chooks for about 4/5 yrs with my present little family down to 3 & they're now about 3ish yrs old. So a little advice from you peeps please.
Up to now I've aquired various groups of birds from different sources (1st 5 came together,needed a home) Sadly Mr Fox got them a year later
I then got 3 from a contact who hatched some eggs & more than expected hatched! These are the ones still happily together, large fowl, mixed breeds (a light sussex, a campine, & another poss Black rock but unsure) & 4 from a recommended contact - less said about her the better 06

So, up to now I've been a little reluctant to replace the natural losses (mostly illness) because the 3 remaining have been fit & healthy & apart from both ganging up on the campine a bit (but nothing too bad) everything going well. I've had bad luck in the past with illness, stress etc killing the birds off not to mention Mr Fox grrrrr :evil:
I now want to add about 3 to my group, mainly because they're getting on a bit. How soon should I wait into the Spring?

I also want to get a new coop & am thinking it would be best to do everything together, is this the right thing to do?

 

[Marigold]

I think it depends on what sort of birds you want to get, and what ages. if you want POL hybrids you can get them at more or less any time of year because they are hatched continually throughout the year, and raised under cover in winter. Purebreds are usually hatched in early Spring, Feb. onwards, so the current years birds aren't available at POL until July onwards. Of course if you were considering rehoming any exbatts, as several people on here have done, you could register with the British Hen Welfare Trust and they will send details of upcoming rehoming events in your area.
If you're going to get a new coop, it would be good to hang on to the old one if you can, and then you can quarantine e new birds in it, in a separate run or part of your run, for a week or two. If you get young POLs (16-18 weeks) this will give them a chance to grow on a bit before encountering the older hens, as well as letting them settle in and prove that they are healthy. From your past experiences, you will realise what a good idea this is, no doubt!
How lovely, to be refreshing your flock and your housing as the spring comes. Do let us know what you decide to do. Maybe someone local to you in Herts can recommend a good supplier.

 

[Lucylou]

Thank you Marigold. If I got some ex-batts how do you think my older ones would react? Wouldn't want the poor ex-batt's being bullied, just about finish them off poor things.

I have got a 'isolation' coop which we had to make when we discovered one of the girls was a boy & not able to stand up for himself (we had to seperate him as he was being attacked by the others -was re-homed thankfully) it would probably be big enough for 3 POL's or maybe 2 ex-batts so I'll dig it out of the garage & have a look at it. The run might not be big enough for the old & the new coop because its big (it housed 7 with room to spare) but this emergency one is small.

Anyone in Herts/Bucks/Beds with any POL's ready Spring time??? We're right on the borders of 3 counties so might get lucky!

 

[Marigold]

If you are interested in finding out more about exbatts, have a look a the interesting website at http://www.bhwt.org.uk/ its a good read, even if you aren't going to get any this time round, and gives advice on merging them with existing birds. I think they recommend giving numerical advantage to the exbatts, so that would mean 4 for you if you already have 3, and also giving them a couple of weeks to get stronger separate from the others before meeting them directly. There ar also some recent threads on here from two people who have recently rehomed some birds.
But you may well feel you want to refresh your stock with young birds, though much of the advice in the exbatts site is still useful to bear in mind when introducing POLs who are not yet mature enough to stand up for themselves very well at first. A second coop is certainly a useful thing to have - I'm so glad I failed to sell my little Eglu Classic when I got a bigger house for mine!