Who is the fether pecker

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cash money

cash money

Chirping
5 Years
Aug 20, 2014
293
6
71
They were hatched may 9 this year there is 1 Bo 2 German sphienhabens 2 EE 2 cochins 2 white leg horns 1 brown 2 cuccumaran 2 wiodets 1 white rock 6 black australorps 2 jersey giants 3 shamo or aezle weird game bird all hens
 
Hard to say. The only way to know for sure is to watch your birds and see for yourself. The bigger question is WHY there is feather picking, rather than who. How much room do you have for them? Overcrowding is often a cause of feather picking, as is boredom which can happen when they're penned up all the time. Do they get to free range at all? That would distract them from picking at each other. How about feed? Are their nutritional needs being met? Do they get to go outside and scratch around?
 
I don't let them free range till there part of the main hen group there to young in opinion they don't have the predator recognition they need yet because we use to free range birds there age and we lost more than now that we weight
 
The birds can be fully spread out over the coop and there's a good foot between them
 
cash money said:
The birds can be fully spread out over the coop and there's a good foot between them
Click to expand...


I think you will find there lies the problem not any particular bird. My adults would kill each other if left that crowded. We bought some 11 wk old ones from a similar set up and the quieter birds all had lost tail and beard feathers. Once they were in a proper size run the problem was resolved.

Your problem is you have to watch you are not teaching them a behaviour that will continue to cause problems down the track even after you have moved them into the (I hope) bigger run.

Oh and edited to add just realised they are five months old? Soooooo need more room!
 
Last edited:
I didn't mean fully spread out like they were trying to get away from each other it was a rainy day it rained all morning and stopped in the afternoon and I let the big hens out to wander and the 5 month Olds were all spread out over the cool dirt sleeping it was one of the first times I had seen them all so relaxed since they were chick's and you would get the they all wakeup and then boom there all asleep and then one would wakeup and then all of them are awake again
 
They were relaxed after the hens were let out? That would suggest to me that they do need more room. A foot of space between each chicken (was this before or after the hens were let out?) is not - in my experience - enough for chickens. I would guess the hens are getting after them when they're all together. My chickens are free ranging by 5 months, but that's what works for me. You need to do what's best for your flock.
 
They can see each other and they can only reach each other if one sticks there head out and in to the other and they have Ben neighbors for 3 months
 

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