Please help with advice

We got a new chicken from a hatchery Thursday. She is 17 weeks old and supposedly BA, but she has green eyes. Our big problem is that we are keeping her in our hospital wing while we introduce her to her new flockmates, but she keeps running her beak back and forth across the hardware cloth on the little run and her beak keeps bleeding from it. We tried letting her loose with them and since she hasn't learned submission yet she attacked them both and we had to separate her again. She keeps acting so crazy flying about in this little run bouncing off the walls smashing herself about and loosing feathers. She cries pitifully and has almost no tail feathers... we don't know how that happened either. She came from a farm raising 1000 chickens, so we doubt if she ever had human touch until she was boxed up and shipped to us. She free ranged in Idaho and living with us we keep them in tractors because of predators in our area. Our other 5 hens divided into 2 tractors with three hens in each our happy and healthy. We're afraid she'll seriously hurt herself and have to be put down. We're at our wits ends and will contact Murray McMurray about this chicken they sold us. Our hens are pets and our babies and this is breaking my heart. Please any advice would be helpful.

Welcome to BYC. Sorry about your new pullet. She sounds scared, but she could be very flighty. I would try to keep her alone in a dim quiet place for a few days, where she can calm down. A dog crate might be a good place, with food and water. Then try to set her crate near the other chickens while they range around her for several days to a week. Then give it another try together with them. I hope that you can get her to work out. Remember to always quarantine new chickens for at least 30 days away from your other chickens in the future.

Thank you for you advice and your welcome to the board. We did have her in a dim place for a few days. She is much better today and even ate a clover from my fingers. I had to turn my head the other way to get her to do it, but it's a step. She isn't bleeding today and there isn't even a sign of a scab from her beak raking incident yesterday. We still have hopes that she will come around.

You might try sitting in a lawn chair in the grass, and hold a few spaghetti noodles or some cooked rice or barley for her to take out of your hands. That way she might learn to trust you, and realize you are the food person. Then when she is better, you could let her free range around the others while they are in their tractors. She will more than likely stay near them for company. Good luck to you, and I am glad she had a better day.

I hate to hear about you McMurry chicken. We have 15 that came from Meyer, and most have adjusted well. I do have one that is quite flighty and gets upset easily running and flapping about. If she feels confined she begins go crazy and stirs up the others. Oddly she is coming around as I sit in a lawn chair and put meal worms in my hand for her to eat from. Seems to be calming her down some. Glad to hear she is adjusting better today. On that beak scab you can put a little polysporin on it if it begins to look bad from the scrapping she did. That is if you can get ahold of her.