Poor Little Pariah Bird!

I was given a batch of more than 30 young chickens, between 8 weeks and 5 months old. Many of them were ill, and so the whole group was quarantined and treated until now, except for a few who are blind in one eye due to infections, they are all fit and lively. I only lost three of them, which makes me feel good.

They are of several different breeds: silkies, Swedish flowers, polish, sizzles and frizzles. Only one is unique. And, the others all HATE her! If I do not keep her by herself, the others are so relentless in their bullying that she will injure herself trying to escape them. I do not know her age, but she is by far the smallest of them all, smaller than a dove.

Anyone have an idea, 1) what breed she is, and 2) what could cause her to be so despised? Thank you so much!

She's been separated too long and she's small and blind. An easy target and since outsiders are to be killed or driven off, that's what they do.

You only have to remove a bird from a flock for two days and they will be attacked when they return.

My best advice has two options. Rehome her or bring some docile birds back to live with her one at a time till she develops a cadre of friends. Then bring a more aggressive bird to become part of the new flock. Keep doing so every day or two till you have two like size flocks. Then swap the flocks and every day bring 3 or 4 of the alpha flock back into the main building till they're integrated.

She might make a wonderful house chicken- for blind birds try to always keep the food and water in the same place, so they can find it. You may want to check out
"People with housechickens," thread for support. She is a little doll.

Wow! I had not realized that alienation from the flock happened so quickly! I will certainly take your suggestions about re-integrating her, and also any birds I am obliged to quarantine in the future.

I am not sure that this is the complete answer, in this little pullet's case, however. The abuse from the other birds went on, initially, before she had been segregated. Even though they were not all symptomatic, when they came, they had traveled together, so I kept them all together, and treated them all, on the assumption that, even without symptoms, they had been exposed. So, she arrived with them, and had been in with everyone else for at least a week or ten days, before I noticed that she spent her days hiding. It was when I drew her out of her hiding spot that the other birds attacked her.

I don't know that I have any birds docile enough to trust her to. My group are all pretty aggressive birds, for some reason. Will she be ok alone? She has become one of my favorites, so she spends a lot of time with me. But, at night, etc., do they need company in order to live a quality life?

I suppose that among birds of her own sort would be a good place to seek companions for her. Which leads me to my second question. Does she look familiar to you? Any idea what she is? If I knew that, I would look into running an ad seeking to trade a couple of my birds for a couple of her kindred.

Thank you so much for taking the time to reply!

Thank you Diva! She is, indeed, a little doll!! She is one of two of that bunch who have really gotten to be pets. The other is a Swedish Flower, who is also blind in one eye. The two of them are difficult to keep off of me! If I won't comply by sitting down so that they can hop up in my lap, then they will wait for a chance to leap onto my back or shoulder. They are really very dictatorial!

The little one, you have seen, I have just taken to calling "Pariah." The other one is "Loo-loo." She is so named because, one cold night when she was still quite ill, I put her and most of the rest, into the bathroom overnight, to keep warm. Someone forgot that the toilet lid needed to be kept down, so when I went to check on them, she was in there, freezing! I really did not think she would survive, because she had been so sick already. I put her in a warm bath, and soaked her until she was warm again. Then I dried her by sitting with her in front of a space heater, and fluffing and fluffing her feathers until she dried. She must have been very grateful, because she adores me now! In fact, she is making it difficult to type this!

Thank you again!