A pullet joins a flock the way a stranger joins a village: gradually, through a fence first. Her opening home is a pen or partitioned run inside the flock's space, wired so the established hens can see her and catch her scent across several days while beaks cannot reach her. Her own feeder and water point stand inside her section. From safety she studies the flock's voices, ranks, and routines, noting which hens drift away unbothered and which one rules the feeder. The flock, meanwhile, spends its loudest outrage at a newcomer on a bird it cannot touch, and by mixing day the stranger is already a familiar sight.
Mixing Day: Space, Hiding Places, and Doubles of Everything
When the flock ignores her through the mesh for much of the day, move to supervised mixing in generous open space. Set out hiding places she can slip behind or under, such as a propped board, a low crate, or a straw bale, with gaps at both ends so she is never cornered in a dead end. Double the resources: another feeder and another water point, placed well away from the originals and out of their direct line of sight. A guarding hen can hold one feeder; she cannot hold two at opposite ends of a run. Scatter some feed widely across the ground as mixing begins, so every bird is busy foraging rather than focusing on the newcomer.
Stay and watch the first sessions in person. Short, calm meetings build the new order; a pullet that is chased briefly, then left to feed at the second feeder, is integrating. Step in only when chasing turns relentless, when she is pinned, pecked at the head, or kept from both feeders and both water points in turn. Blood drawn, feathers pulled in quantity, or a pullet hiding all day without eating or drinking all mean the same thing: separate her, return to the mesh stage for more days, and retry the stages more slowly. Normal pecking-order scuffles are brief, spread across the day, and fade across the first week. Relentless chasing does not fade; it escalates, and it is the line that decides.
The Night Move Onto the Roost
The roost move happens at night, once daytime mixing is mostly calm. Carry her in after dark, when the flock is settled and drowsy, and place her on a perch with space around her. Chickens are docile in darkness and reluctant to start a fight they cannot see. By morning she has woken on the roost as part of the group, smelling of the house, and the flock often accepts her presence with far less fuss than a daylight arrival earns. Watch the roost at dusk for the next few evenings, because roosting order is contested as well as feeder order, and a pullet shoved off the perch nightly may need a second perch at a similar height until ranks settle. Give perching room generously during the first mixed week; a run of perch with empty space at one end lets her roost near the flock without sleeping pressed against a hen that pecks.
Run the introduction as a household watch plan through KinsLe's Care Teams: dawn and dusk watches assigned to named people, feeder and water checks noted, and each watch recording whether the pullet ate, drank, roosted, and how much chasing was seen, so the separate-and-retry call rests on a full picture rather than one person's glimpse. Watch notes saved in the Care Teams diary on KinsLe turn scattered scuffles into a clear pattern you can act on at the next separation decision.