Adopting a bullied chicken

[OCDadof5]

Hello, all.

We've had chickens for about a year now and everything is going very well. We have 3 RIR and 2 Ameraucanas. A friend of ours has a Plymouth Rock hen that apparently has been bullied to the point of bleeding and an injured eye. Our friend has asked us to adopt the hen since she is worried it will be killed by her current flock.

I am unsure how to handle this. One of our reds is occasionally bossy but I wouldn't call her a bully. I don't know if introducing a weakened and probably timid hen would make her aggressive. I do have a large tractor which I could convert into a run/coop and place it within our run to separate and slowly introduce the chicken.

Is this even a good idea? Any thoughts or advice would be greatly appreciated. I'd hate to see the hen killed since she is a gentle lady but I don't know if having her come to our flock is the right thing.

Thanks!

 

[Stiggy]

If you are going to introduce her do it gradually, and once she is fully healed up or the others will attack her. your friend is right they will kill her if nothing is done . if you can introduce her slowly by putting a run inside or along side of another, once they seem comfortable being near each other put her in to the house at night and check her early in the morning, if there are still problems remove the bossy hen and place her in the tractor until things settle down. I hope this helps

 

[aart]

Hello, all.

We've had chickens for about a year now and everything is going very well. We have 3 RIR and 2 Ameraucanas. A friend of ours has a Plymouth Rock hen that apparently has been bullied to the point of bleeding and an injured eye. Our friend has asked us to adopt the hen since she is worried it will be killed by her current flock.

I am unsure how to handle this. One of our reds is occasionally bossy but I wouldn't call her a bully. I don't know if introducing a weakened and probably timid hen would make her aggressive. I do have a large tractor which I could convert into a run/coop and place it within our run to separate and slowly introduce the chicken.

Is this even a good idea? Any thoughts or advice would be greatly appreciated. I'd hate to see the hen killed since she is a gentle lady but I don't know if having her come to our flock is the right thing.

Thanks!

I would suggest that the friend deal with the bully in her flock....by isolating her (or them) in a visible but physically separate pen. She could use a separate pen, a good thing to have for cases like this, or a very large dog crate.

Separating out bully, or bullies, changes the flock dynamic (pecking order) and can be amazing.

Having the bullied hen come to your flock is just handing off the problem to you...plus you need to think about biosecurity and the fact that integrating a single bird into an established flock is very difficult.

 

[OCDadof5]

It sounds like she is going to try and deal with her bullies.

Thanks for the help.