Hey guys! A friend of mine introduced me to this site saying y’all are awesome. I have been reading through everything I can find but I don’t see anything that is my exact situation so I wanted to see if you guys have some ideas to help my little guys out.
I just bought 6 baby chicks from Rural King and everyone gets along except one. This one little guy pecks the toes of every single other chicken obsessively and he/she grabs their toes and drags them around. Some have little red marks and one seems to get the worst of it because he/she has a couple of red toes. They aren’t really bleeding but the skin is getting broken. I read that you can “peck” the bully to let them know their behavior sucks but honestly this little guy just gets crazier when you try to tell him no so that doesn’t work at all (plus I feel like I’m being mean).
We had chickens growing up but it was when I was much much younger so I have no idea what I’m doing really. I’ve got several reptiles so I have a bit of knowledge when it comes to heating and all that. My brooder looks similar to some people have shared on here. Metal 2x2x4 trough (I’ll post a pic) with the same setup they had in the store. I’m constantly checking the heat so it stays around 90 at the hottest point for fluctuations. I have been removing the ones with the red toes until they aren’t as red anymore and I remove the bully to allow the others a break sometimes but I’m not sure if that’s even helpful at all. So much information out there it’s hard to figure out what to do. I noticed the same thing with my bearded dragons, gecko, and ball pythons where there is a ton of misinformation that I later learned was terrible advice. So here I am hoping to get some idea of what to do (or if I should just let them figure it out) because I don’t want the bully to hurt them anymore than necessary to establish the pecking order. Thanks in advance guys!
I just bought 6 baby chicks from Rural King and everyone gets along except one. This one little guy pecks the toes of every single other chicken obsessively and he/she grabs their toes and drags them around. Some have little red marks and one seems to get the worst of it because he/she has a couple of red toes. They aren’t really bleeding but the skin is getting broken. I read that you can “peck” the bully to let them know their behavior sucks but honestly this little guy just gets crazier when you try to tell him no so that doesn’t work at all (plus I feel like I’m being mean).
We had chickens growing up but it was when I was much much younger so I have no idea what I’m doing really. I’ve got several reptiles so I have a bit of knowledge when it comes to heating and all that. My brooder looks similar to some people have shared on here. Metal 2x2x4 trough (I’ll post a pic) with the same setup they had in the store. I’m constantly checking the heat so it stays around 90 at the hottest point for fluctuations. I have been removing the ones with the red toes until they aren’t as red anymore and I remove the bully to allow the others a break sometimes but I’m not sure if that’s even helpful at all. So much information out there it’s hard to figure out what to do. I noticed the same thing with my bearded dragons, gecko, and ball pythons where there is a ton of misinformation that I later learned was terrible advice. So here I am hoping to get some idea of what to do (or if I should just let them figure it out) because I don’t want the bully to hurt them anymore than necessary to establish the pecking order. Thanks in advance guys!
I’ll try some marbles or something and see if he finds those more interesting than toes
