It’s your first day at the new job. You walk in to the building carrying your potted plant and the file box containing a few photos and your coffee cup. Everybody stares at you as you search for your new office. You eventually find your way and set your box and plant on your new desk. You wonder where the bathroom is. And the break room. And what you’re supposed to do next. The woman across the hall is staring at you, so you give her a tentative smile. She emits a little shriek and runs away down the hall. A group of gawkers begins to form just outside your office door and suddenly the beefy, deranged-looking guy in the back breaks free of the group, strides forward and punches you right in the face. What a nightmare!

Of course, it really is a nightmare—a fever dream. Because nothing like this would happen in real life! Unless you’re a chicken. This is exactly the sort of hazing every chicken can expect to undergo when introduced to a new flock. Chickens don’t punch, of course. They peck. To establish a pecking order. And there’s no way around that.

And that’s why you can’t just open the coop door, toss in a few new chickens and hope for the best. It will be a stressful time for you, for your flock, and especially for the new chickens. But with a little planning and strategy you can make it a little less stressful.

Emily Post has written at length on proper introductions. She, without a doubt, would consider punching a new co-worker in the face to be a faux pas in the extreme. The rationale of Emily Post’s etiquette is to have rules and strategies for social situations so those situations will flow smoothly. Chickens, like people, are social animals. And if you’re prepared with some rules and strategies for introducing chickens, you can make those introductions flow smoothly. Here are six:

1 - Quarantine the New Chickens

Any new chickens should start out in a totally separate area from your flock for several weeks. This gives you time to check out and treat the new birds for any diseases, lice or mites that you may discover they’re carrying. These new chickens will be stressed by their move, which makes them more susceptible to disease. If you’re starting with baby chicks, they’ll need their own area because they’re tiny and vulnerable. Babies need to grow to at least three-months-old before they can be integrated into your flock. Once they’ve reached that age, they’ve developed their full set of feathers, they no longer need a heat source, and they’re approaching the size of the adult chickens they’re about to meet.

**Baby chicks start out in their own brooder space**

2 - Allow Them to Introduce Themselves

After you’re sure you have healthy new chickens, allow your new and old chickens to see each other. You can either build a separate coop within your old coop, or put a new one up right next to the old one. Separate the two spaces with fencing—this way the new and old chickens can see each other and perhaps even start working on the pecking order with visual cues without any actual pecks. This stage should take a couple of weeks.

**Charlie Barred Rock, the flock alpha hen, eyes Squawky the Speckled Sussex pullet through the fence separating their spaces**

3 - Check Your Space and Equipment

Many large commercial poultry operations have major problems with pecking. Most commercial operators solve the pecking problem by the cruel practice of debeaking their hens. Hens peck excessively for a variety of reasons, and addressing those underlying reasons is a more humane solution than cutting off half of their beaks.

When you introduce new chickens to your flock, the amount of pecking will increase as your newly expanded flock works out the new pecking order. This process usually gets resolved fairly quickly as the lower ranking hens figure out that they are lower ranking and need to stay out of the way of higher-ranking birds. But if there are too many chickens for the space, staying out of the way can be hard to do.

Overcrowding is a ubiquitous and obvious problem in poultry factory farms. Overcrowded hens are aggressive hens. Aggressive hens peck! Don’t be like factory farms. Give your hens plenty of space. It’s humane, it’s simple, and it’s easy to do!

Most experts agree that chickens need four square feet of floor space per chicken. I would suggest that four feet is the bare minimum. And when determining floor space, be sure to subtract the space taken up by coop equipment. In addition, chickens need outdoor space. They should have at least 8-10 square feet of run space per chicken. Do the math before you bring those new chickens on board, and if there’s any way to give your flock even additional space as they’re getting acquainted, that’s a plus!

Insufficient coop equipment also causes crowding. Rule of thumb: A water fount and a feeder for every ten chickens; a nest box for every four hens; a foot of roost space for each chicken. Adding extra feeders and water founts for a while is also a good idea. You have extras that your new hens were using when they were in quarantine. Move them into the coop for a while when you move the new hens. The new chickens will spend a lot of time at first avoiding the old chickens. This could mean not being able to get near the feeders and founts if there are too few. Temporary additional roost space, if that’s possible, also allows everybody is a way to spread out.

You may also want to consider a few obstacles for the new hens to hide in or behind. Something as simple as a pile of big branches in the run. I’ve put a roll of wire fencing on its side into my run and it works great! Chickens can go into it or hide behind it. It doesn’t have to be fancy to be functional!

4 - Get the Party Started

Open the door and let them mingle! Some flock keepers recommend putting the new chickens on the roost in the middle of the night. I’ve tried this and my experience has been that it just postpones the inevitable drama to the next morning when they all wake up. There will be drama! You can expect pecking, chasing, and aggressive behavior. Keep and eye, but don’t intervene unless things get completely out of hand. If a bunch of old hens get a panicked newbie in a cornered and she can’t escape, that’s when you step in. Otherwise, let them do their thing. They have to work it out!

4.5- month-old Raphael the Silkie rooster and Paulette the Cream Legbar hen meet for the first time. All posturing and no blood!

5 - Keep Them Busy and Entertained

This is a perfect time to introduce a chicken swing or coop toy—and give them extra treats and scratch. Too many treats over the long haul isn’t a good idea, but this is a special occasion, so splurge! Chickens who are eating scratch are not chasing other chickens!

**Emile supervises Paula and Charlie as they play with a treats ball**

6 - Keep an Eye Out

Spend extra time with your flock to make sure nobody’s getting bullied and everybody’s settling in. The first week is the worst! You’ll all get through it, though, and someday you’ll all laugh about it!