Aggressive chick: removing the injured chick calms down the aggressor

[Mom2Chicken]

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.

 

[starri33]

Are any of the other chicks picking on him? if not maybe you could pick him a buddy and keep them separate from the others till he's had a bit of time to grow and heal.. that way he has a chance to hold his own. I don't let mine run in the flock till they are at least half the size of my smallest hen, I wonder what the possibility of it having a health issue that is causing the one to pick on him.

 

[Mom2Chicken]

Thanks for the suggestion!

None of the other chicks are picking on him. The chicks are also not exposed to any of our other chickens for the most part. Our other two game hens can fly over the fence into the area where the chicks' run is located. But they don't do it that often. And they've never flown into the run itself.

 

[FluffyButtBabies]

You could try separating the wounded chick from the rest, but still letting them see it. If they can observe the other chick from a closer distance but can't get to it, they might get used to it. They'll realize that there really isn't any point to fixating on the other chick, because they can't even reach it. Then after a few weeks let it back in and see how the others react. I'm not quite sure if it'll work, but I've learned that if you can make aggressive chicks loose interest in the weaker ones, they generally lay off.

 

[Mom2Chicken]

Thank you, @FluffyButtBabies. I plan to go back to putting the injured chick in the coop proper while letting the other chicks stay out in the run all day. I'll bring the injured chick in at night and let the other chicks sleep in the coop.

Also, we don't plan to keep most of these chicks. Once their mom fully loses interest (which waxes and wanes anyway) and we can definitively sex them, we'll begin to give them away. So long term, this shouldn't be an issue. It's just tough to watch one chick peck so vociferously at another.

 

[Mom2Chicken]

An update in case someone has a similar problem in the future:

Here's what I did:

• I kept the injured chick separated from the flock for a week.
  • I brought it indoors at night and locked it in the coop during the day.
  • In the coop, it was in full view of the other chicks.
  • I checked its injuries nightly to make sure they were healing.
• After a couple of days, I put another chick in with it full time.
• Once I saw that its wounds were healing really well, I let both chicks back into the run with the others.

Here's how it went:
The aggressive cockerel scoped out the injured chick and did some posturing but did not attack. Likewise, the injured chick (which I haven't definitively sexed) did some posturing with another chick (most probably a pullet) but did not attack.

It's been several hours and things are going well.

I realized I probably needed to give the chick more time to heal since chickens are ruthless to other injured chickens.

 

[FluffyButtBabies]

Wow! That sounds like it all worked out really well! I'm happy for you

 

[centrarchid]

When I have those battle royals, the aggressor is attacking another that is often very likely to attack back if not attacked first. Listen very closely to the sounds the attacked bird is making and compare it to sounds produced by those not being attacked as frequently.