Beak filing?????!!

[2dancingrats]

You found it! Thanks! Today you are my hero!

 

[ChickenMama18]

Quote:
For the rooster, i would correct him any time i saw him hurt or be inappropriately rough with a hen. I would do this by immediately picking him up and holding him under my arm (very firmly) and hold his beak closed with my other hand - until he submits. If this isn't good enough for him, i would pick him by the feet the next time i saw him do it. You're letting him know that you're the boss, and you don't approve of his behavior.

For the hen - mind you i haven't had a mean hen problem personally - quite a few people utilize a hen time out. You remove her from the flock, for maybe a day, at first. Keep her some place where she can see the flock but can't interact with them - or just remove her completely. When she returns, she will have lost her place in the pecking order, and you may see some behavior changes.

There is an article, somewhere at byc, i think, that goes into depth about rooster behavior modification and establishing yourself as alpha roo. I can't seem to find it right now.

In short, for me - and this is just me - if i could not reasonably change the behavior of any chicken in my flock who was physically hurting the others - i would remove it permanently from my flock before i would spend time filing down his or her beak. Again, that's just me. Behavior like that spreads.

We have a hen who is a plucker...and I seperated her for a week and a half, reintroducing her last weekend but she's still plucking. I read another post that someone suggested on another thread that said peep blinders (keeps them from seeing forward and thus plucking) can work or also beak/bumper bits which keep their mouths from closing completely but still can eat. This might be an option for you. I'm going to search ebay and see what I can find.

 

[2dancingrats]

Thank you.

 

[SurferchickinSB]

These are my first chicks and the littlest ones, 2 Silver Grey Dorkings are eye peckers and they have damaged the eyes of my little BCMarans. I separated them with a wire blockade at night, they are together in the day in a much bigger enclosure with a heat lamp outside and they seemed OK, but today, they started up again, it was raining and they had to be brought in earlier and I don't want my BCMarans to be blind in both eyes, so I took the 2 little 2 week Dorkings and I filed their beaks down a little with my dogs rotary nail file and at least their beaks are not so pointy now! They ripped my little BCMarans upper eyelid in half and also damaged the clear coating of her eye! I am horrified! These guys are all only 2 weeks old and are with 3 week chicks and one 4 week chick, but these youngest little Dorkings have an eye obsession.