brought the first one in for the season

[neuchicontheblock]

poor phyllis! bottom of the barrel and all the roo's pummel her and the hens run after her. she has feathers gone and parts of her wings where the roos hold on are bloody. so i have brought her in, washed her up and she is wrapped up in a towel...hence no capitals in this note. poor baby. i can't really have an indoor chicken so i don't quite know what to do.

 

[Judy]

Quote:
Poor thing. Trouble is, isolating her makes her the bottom of the pecking order, and she's already there.

If you could separate a couple of the bullies for a while and reduce their place in the pecking order, it might help.

The roos? Do you have too many roos? Might solve the problem that way, too. One roo won't have any competition and is likely to treat his hens much better.

 

[sourland]

Maybe get rid of some of the roosters and do all of the hens a favor?

 

[neuchicontheblock]

Thanks for the replies. I have 3 roos and 25 hens, pullets and cockerals. The king roo is a mille fleur banty, and the other two are silkies, believe it or not. They are truly snotty birds and I would get rid of them but DH likes them. I have to work on him, because I think they are just stupid.
She looks better today, clamer and getting treats to eat...she was thin. She doesn't care about the dogs and the dogs don't care about her, since she pecked the pug.

 

[theFox]

Set up a bachelors pad for the roos and only let one at a time out with the hens. That'll help the hens and put the roos at the disadvantage. Just be sure to watch for the hens ganging up on the roo that is out with them.

 

[MissJenny]

Is there a calm or slow hen you can bring in with Phyllis? I ended up with something similar, minus the roos. One of my hens, Phoebe, got pecked, stripped, plucked to where her side was bloody -- she was even pecking herself. So I separated her out till she could heal... but then I couldn't get her back in with the flock. I'm not sure which came first -- if they chased her or if she screamed and caused them to chase her to shut her up. I do know that having a house chicken was a huge mess! Even keeping her confined to the kitchen was a mess with cleaning up poop blobs constantly.

As luck would have it Marilla injured her leg -- she could not chase anybody. So I put her in with Phoebe and they are now fast friends.

My next step is to put them both in the same run with the others, but divided with chicken wire so they can see one another, but not grab one another. I'm going to do this for an hour or so every day till eventually I can put them together supervised for a short periods of time till everybody's friendly.

It's a lot of work... but it sure beats the mess of a house chicken.

Good luck with yours -- I know you will come up with a plan that will work for you and for Poor Phyllis. (Another choice would be to pair her with a friend and give them to a 4-H kid.)

Jenny