HI Friends,
I'm new here and have an emergency. Last night, I found one of my hens with some injuries on her head. A little blood and her eye looked injured. I put them all to "bed" in the coop, figuring she would feel better in the morning and I'd be able to check her out in the daylight. Well this morning we found her nearly dead in the corner of the coop and the rooster strutting around with a beakful of her feathers. He's battering her head badly - she may not make it - and some feathers on her back are also torn out.
What would make a rooster suddenly turn on a hen like that? '
Some background: He's a cockerel, about 7 months old, and we've had this hen for about 4 months. She's integrated into the flock, along with several of her "sisters" and there have been no problems up until now. The hen has a little larger comb than the others, and my son mistook her for a rooster at first. But she has no saddle feathers or long tail feathers and has never crowed, so I can't be mistaken about her henliness. Can I????
I don't have a photo and she's beyond photographing now.
Please, if you can shed any light on this, let me know. Also, we're considering doing away with the cockerel because of this. Opinions? He's not aggressive with us, so we like having him around, but I can't have a henicidal rooster!!!
Thank you in advance for sharing your wisdom with me.
Theresa
I'm new here and have an emergency. Last night, I found one of my hens with some injuries on her head. A little blood and her eye looked injured. I put them all to "bed" in the coop, figuring she would feel better in the morning and I'd be able to check her out in the daylight. Well this morning we found her nearly dead in the corner of the coop and the rooster strutting around with a beakful of her feathers. He's battering her head badly - she may not make it - and some feathers on her back are also torn out.
What would make a rooster suddenly turn on a hen like that? '
Some background: He's a cockerel, about 7 months old, and we've had this hen for about 4 months. She's integrated into the flock, along with several of her "sisters" and there have been no problems up until now. The hen has a little larger comb than the others, and my son mistook her for a rooster at first. But she has no saddle feathers or long tail feathers and has never crowed, so I can't be mistaken about her henliness. Can I????
I don't have a photo and she's beyond photographing now.
Please, if you can shed any light on this, let me know. Also, we're considering doing away with the cockerel because of this. Opinions? He's not aggressive with us, so we like having him around, but I can't have a henicidal rooster!!!
Thank you in advance for sharing your wisdom with me.
Theresa