1 of my hens is pecking another hen!!

[racefanz]

One of my chickens is pecking another one of my chickens on her back. I don't know why and I would love to get some feedback on why and what I can do to stop it. They are the same age, which is about 1.5 years old. I have a total of 10 chickens, all girls and haven't had any problem like this before. We live in Maine and the weather has been wacky lately. Warm, cold, windy, rainy....it's really been weird for Maine in March! I don't know if the weather has something to do with it. Please help!!

 

[Baymen Moe]

How big is your coop and run for your 10 birds? I've had some pecking problems due to boredom, even though I have the prescribed space for number of birds. I have since let them range a little and added a flock block to their run for something else to peck at. My birds are 11 months old. At first I thought I had a mite or lice problem because I have some bare butt issues but upon close inspection there were none to be found. I then observed the pecking first hand and took the measures above and it has helped some.

 

[math ace]

IF your birds have been together all this time AND nothing else has changed . . . No new birds added to the flock, etc, Then I agree that the weather
may be indirectly affecting them. If they aren't free to roam like they did before and are stuck in smaller quarters - - the coop, THEN space is an issue.

I had a leghorn who has always been super sensitive to overcrowding.

So, you may need to pull the plucker out for a while for two reasons - - -
1.) Give the pluckee a chance to grow back the feathers ( takes 2 - 4 weeks and would help if you fed extra protein during this time to help the process)
2.) By removing the trouble maker - - she gets more space by herself and the others instantly have more space.

I tried this with one of my feather pluckers, but by the time I did something about it - - - there had been enough feathers plucked out of the one bird, that the others started pecking her too. I ended up putting the DAMAGED bird in isolation so that she could grow the feathers back in piece. I have a 4 x 8 cage outside of my main run that I use for chicks or time outs like this. The Birds can see each other - - - just not get to each other.