The coop is 10x12 so there is a lot of room, particularly for 4 chicks. I did everything by the discussion boards, except adding the hen in since her chick is much smaller than the new roommates and very submissive, I thought she would be a good buddy to protect him. Since the coop was new to all of them, I also thought that eliminated territoriality issues. I put in a submissive chick from my main group and one assertive one to stand up to mom if there was a problem. What I didn’t foresee was mom would come into the coop from outside quickly and go after both of my inside birds with a vengeance. The assertive one was pecked by the hen and got out of the way. She then threw herself on the submissive one, pinned her down with her body weight, and proceeded to violently peck her everywhere. I stopped it within seconds and got the hen out immediately but the chick was so distressed that she was panting, expelling liquid stool over and over, unable to drink or come down off a cone she was trying to hang onto, and that twitching was going on. Because she was so upset, I moved the assertive one out and put in the sister of the one attacked. That eventually calmed her down but BOTH of them started shaking their heads! I see absolutely no injuries on her except the extreme anxiety and I noticed she was physically shaking. I eventually left her with her sister and the other submissive chick. When I looked on the sly, the two sisters were finally roosting together on a lower bar while the hen’s baby was strutting around and flying to higher roosts. I can’t imagine why the head on both of them is twitching now- perhaps not injury but shared stress??
