Mom2Chicken
Chirping
- Oct 23, 2019
- 41
- 70
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Lots of aggressive chick threads out there, but I haven't come across this scenario.
Quick background: Our chicks are 4 1/2 weeks old They were hatched by their first-time mother who is half overly attentive/half inattentive, which might be the root of some of our challenges. She is a 100% free-range game hen. The chicks are in a run. Also, the "dad" is not our rooster, but lives next door and only recently showed up on our neighbors' doorstep. We don't know his history.
This week's challenge: an aggressive chick and thus an injured chick
The story: One chick, likely a cockerel, started picking on all of the others, especially one. He cornered this particular chick and pecked at it until I separated them. The chick was a little scraped up, but no open wounds. I took the injured chick out, the mother happened to return to the pen around this time although she basically flitted around helplessly. Eventually, everyone calmed down.
The next day, I put the injured chick back into the coop (which is inside the chicken run) and closed the door so the other chicks couldn't get to it, though they could all see each other. All day, the dominant chick was very well behaved. He didn't bully any of the other chicks.
Today, I let the victim chick out to see how things would go. It didn't show signs of injury, which I know can trigger chickens. In minutes, the dominant cockerel attacked this chick again and drew blood this time. Then, the mother hen returned to the run and started pecking at this poor chick too while I was trying to get it out of the pen. I had to fight off the mother hen so she would let me take the chick. I was able to remove the chick again and brought it inside our house for the time being. The mother chick flew away again, and all the other chicks calmed down.
My question is what to do. I have read about putting dominant chicks on a "time out," but this one is well behaved when the victim chick is not around. And now the poor victim chick is injured, and it needs to be separated anyway. Any advice on how to handle this long term would help.
I've attached a picture of the injured chick.
Quick background: Our chicks are 4 1/2 weeks old They were hatched by their first-time mother who is half overly attentive/half inattentive, which might be the root of some of our challenges. She is a 100% free-range game hen. The chicks are in a run. Also, the "dad" is not our rooster, but lives next door and only recently showed up on our neighbors' doorstep. We don't know his history.
This week's challenge: an aggressive chick and thus an injured chick
The story: One chick, likely a cockerel, started picking on all of the others, especially one. He cornered this particular chick and pecked at it until I separated them. The chick was a little scraped up, but no open wounds. I took the injured chick out, the mother happened to return to the pen around this time although she basically flitted around helplessly. Eventually, everyone calmed down.
The next day, I put the injured chick back into the coop (which is inside the chicken run) and closed the door so the other chicks couldn't get to it, though they could all see each other. All day, the dominant chick was very well behaved. He didn't bully any of the other chicks.
Today, I let the victim chick out to see how things would go. It didn't show signs of injury, which I know can trigger chickens. In minutes, the dominant cockerel attacked this chick again and drew blood this time. Then, the mother hen returned to the run and started pecking at this poor chick too while I was trying to get it out of the pen. I had to fight off the mother hen so she would let me take the chick. I was able to remove the chick again and brought it inside our house for the time being. The mother chick flew away again, and all the other chicks calmed down.
My question is what to do. I have read about putting dominant chicks on a "time out," but this one is well behaved when the victim chick is not around. And now the poor victim chick is injured, and it needs to be separated anyway. Any advice on how to handle this long term would help.
I've attached a picture of the injured chick.