Will my hen be ok in isolation while building a new shelter?

[Battlepants]

Hello all

Little background:
Our flock consists of 6 birds currently: 4 full sized hens, 1 full sized rooster and 1 silkie hen. As for the pecking order, the silkie has always been on the very bottom. The rooster has just started into maturity and has started to attempt to mate with the hens. This has been mostly non-eventful as he is rather uncoordinated. On Monday morning, he decided to attempt to mate with the silkie which seemed to go fine. Tuesday morning, he did this again, then we were noticing a lot of commotion in the yard followed by the silkie disappearing into the coop - it was found that the silkie had a cut on the back of her head and I think the rooster was harassing her about this. Note, this is the first time I've ever seen him show aggression toward her or the other hens, outside of the older hens harassing him and he establishing his place.

Friday, got her back into the coop late-ish in the day and there was some picking on, but things calmed down after a bit. This morning (Saturday), things went bad again. The rooster attempted to mate with her around 5 times in the span of a couple hours, resulting in her head getting cut up again. She has been removed from the flock and put back into the hospital shelter for more wound treatment.

At this point, I can't morally put her back into that situation again and need to take some further measures to make sure she is safe and happy.

My plan this spring is to convert our existing shed into a much larger coop and put in a larger secure run attached to it. The larger chickens are planned to go into this larger coop, as well as being allowed to hatch out some young in here. This will likely happen in around 2-4 weeks from now when the weather clears and working out there is bearable.

The plan for the silkie is to remain in the hospital shelter in the garage while I build a brooder. Then will be moved to the brooder as a semi-permanent living space. The intention is to get some additional bantom sized chicks for her flock that will be raised up in that same brooder, then the entire group will be moved out to the old smaller coop.

So, a few questions:
1. Is this a bad idea and should I just look to rehome her instead?
2. Will this be ok to have a singled out hen exist on her own for a while?
3. What kind of enrichment should be provided so that she doesn't get bored?
4. Is it ok to have an adult hen along side of babies in the brooder? As a middle ground, would they be better if they had a barrier between them?

 

[rosemarythyme]

1, 2. As long as you have space (and budget) to make 2 separate set ups, no reason why you can't keep her with others closer to her size/temperament.

3. Not exactly sure how your garage hospital shelter is set up, but if you can give her some time outside in view of the others, even if she can't physically be with them, it'll still provide her some companionship.

4. Assuming she isn't broody and raising them as her own, she can be next to them as long as there's a barrier to provide protection to the chicks until they've been integrated with her. Small opening wire mesh is ideal because that will also begin the integration process by allowing her to see and spend time around the chicks without risk of harming them.

 

[Morgan Leigh]

I kept one of my hens in my house for 2-3 months this last winter...she was basically a house chicken (w/ a diaper). She had the run of the house so she had 2 cats, a dog, and 2 people to keep her company. She watched TV, sat on my lap and helped me play xbox and begged with the best of them. There were a few arguments when she went out, but nothing serious, and boy was my rooster happy to see his fav hen! lol

 

[Battlepants]

I suppose I could drop in an update on Ms. Silkie on this thread.

She is completely healed and doing well. She is also dropping adorable little pink eggs.

In her isolation time, I would bring her out and keep her in a dog crate just next to the run on nice days. The big ones would get a bit sassy on her but couldn't actually do anything due to 2 layers of steel wire. I feel like this time outside helped her through these times and overall she seemed content.

The new coop has been completed and has a secured run - the rooster and the 4 big hens have moved out there, leaving the old coop and secure run open. Ms. Silkie has moved out to the old coop and currently lives in there alone. However, both the secured runs are about 10-15 feet away from eachother, so they can easily see eachother and interact to an extent.

In the near future, 8 chicks will be joining Ms. Silkie (currently about 4-5 weeks old, spent around 3-4 weeks in the brooder). After a month or two of growing, some of the larger ones ones will be heading over to the new coop to better fill out that group, while the smaller ones will be staying with Ms. Silkie as permanent flockmates.