Bruised eye and bully chickens

[Emily_loveschickens]

Hey everyone. I just noticed today that one of my chickens has a bruised skin around her eye. Also, my chickens are very mean to her still and I do not know what to do. We integrated her about five months ago, and there are still certain chickens that are very mean. I am wondering if the bruised eye is from one of our other chickens I don’t not know what to do about it. They can be so mean it makes me so sad.

 

[coach723]

How many chickens do you have, males/females, and how much space in your run and coop? Sometimes things like this are from not enough space. How old is this bird and where did she come from? Was she the only one that was integrated at that time?

 

[Emily_loveschickens]

We have five chickens including her, all are females. There is 60 ft.² in the run and 20 ft.² in the coop. She is 10 months old and came from a local feed store. We had two chicks, but one got taken from a raccoon before we integrated so yes, she was the only one being integrated at that time.

 

[coach723]

By math you have enough space, however your birds behaviour says otherwise. She may be getting bullied/pecked on the roosts, so take a look at that layout and see if you can adjust so they can be more spread out. Sometimes dividers on the roosts can give them a somewhat shielded space, just make sure no one can be cornered. It can be harder to integrate a single bird, they don't have any buddies and they are trying to integrate into an already formed group. I've had a couple like that, due to similar circumstances, and sometimes they kind of remain loners, staying on the edges. My space is much larger, so they have plenty of room to escape. If you can find a couple of similar aged chicks, you might get them to integrate with her separately, and then integrate that group with the others, it can sometimes make a difference. Just depends on if you want, or have the space to add. If you can expand your run and provide some places to get up an away, or to hide behind (without being cornered) that may also help. Do some observing and see if you can identify one particular bully. If that's the case then separating that one for a while can sometimes reset the pecking order and settle things down.