Devestated

[tutdee]

About a month ago we brought 2 RIR that were about 1 1/2 years old. We never had trouble with them until yesterday. I bought 3 3month RIR from a swap at TSC on Sunday. We let the little ones stay inside a wire cage inside of the coop all night. Yesterday morning we checked on them and they were doing good. We went to work, and got back about 9.5 hours later to find one of the babies dead. The other chickens pecked her head until there was anything barely left of it. I hurry up got the other 2 babies out and noticed the back of their head had been pecked down to the meat and put them in another cage. As I was standing there watching the chickens just move around I saw 1 of the 1 1/2 RIR pecking at the other chickens. I took her out the coop and put her in isolation. What else can I do to make sure nothing like that ever happens again? I am devastated.

 

[ChickenCanoe]

RIRs can be bullies. Established flocks don't take kindly to newcomers because they are a threat to the flock.
Always introduce like sizes and like numbers. It is best when they are free ranging and not confined.

 

[aart]

Yeah, ya gotta take some times to integrate new birds into the flock...it's all about territoriality.

Here's some notes I've taken on integration that I found to be very helpful.......
......take what applies or might help and ignore the rest.
See if any of them, or the links provided at the bottom, might offer some tips that will assist you in your situation:

Integration of new chickens into flock.

Consider medical quarantine:
BYC Medical Quarantine Article
Poultry Biosecurity
BYC 'medical quarantine' search

Confine new birds within sight but physically segregated from older/existing birds for several weeks, so they can see and get used to each other but not physically interact. Integrating new birds of equal size works best.

For smaller chicks I used a large wire dog crate right in the coop for the smallers. I removed the crate door and put up a piece of wire fencing over the opening and bent up one corner just enough for the smallers to fit thru but the biggers could not. Feed and water inside the crate for the smallers. Make sure the smallers know how to get in and out of the crate opening before exposing them to the olders. this worked out great for me, by the time the crate was too small for the them to roost in there(about 3 weeks), they had pretty much integrated themselves to the olders.

If you have too many smallers to fit in a crate you can partition off part of the coop with a wire wall and make the same openings for smallers escape.


The more space, the better. Birds will peck to establish dominance, the pecked bird needs space to get away. As long as there's no blood drawn and/or new bird is not trapped/pinned down, let them work it out. Every time you interfere or remove new birds, they'll have to start the pecking order thing all over again.

Multiple feed/water stations. Dominance issues are most often carried out over sustenance, more stations lessens the frequency of that issue.

Places for the new birds to hide out of line of sight and/or up and away from any bully birds.

Read up on integration..... BYC advanced search>titles only>integration
This is good place to start reading:
https://www.backyardchickens.com/a/adding-to-your-flock

 

[mikaylahsica]

Had the SAME issue with this little girl. My larger chickens who already established a flock, obviously do not like lightly colored chickens lol. I find it so ridiculous but they've only touched my white and golden chick. This one was totally beat, I thought it would blow over after a few pecks but man I was wrong. I think I removed her from the group just in time. She appeared unlikely to survive, but gosh she's made a wonderful recovery!! I'm going to try the advice above when I add more of my chicks and hopefully it will work.