chicken pulling out feathers

[lbierly]

Hi I am new, so forgive me if this question was been asked before, bought 6 chickens last week at 11 weeks old, 2 Australorp, 2 Barnevelders, and 2 Easter eggers. All seemed fine until yesterday when i notice a lot of feathers in their run. Taking a closer look i notice two of my chicken are missing some
of their back end feathers. The bad guy in this is one of my Australorps, I have removed her from the run. And wanting to know why she is doing this. I feed them grower feed, with some fresh veggie and fruit from time to time. They are in a 4 x 6 coop, with a 8 x 10 run. Dont know if I should just have her for dinner or is there something i can try.

 

[Pork Pie]

Take a look a this thread for ideas - http://articles.extension.org/pages...nibalism-in-small-and-backyard-poultry-flocks

 

[Allymally]

Thanks CTKen I read the article but have to say the conditions I have my birds in more than meet the recommendations apart from having roosts at different levels. Can't see how I can do that really as the coop I have has four roosts on the same level, with no way of altering them, I'll have to have a think about that. The anti boredom things are a good idea though, I will try these. My girls have quite a large area, with lots of hidyholes and shrubs to root in and under, several feeding and watering stations as well. I don't understand tho when the author says daylight hours need to be limited to help avoid pecking, can't do that really when they don't go to bed until dusk and are out again at five in the morning!! Who says chicken keeping was going to be a nice relaxing hobby for my retirement??

 

[Pork Pie]

Haha. To be honest, if your set up is fine, it may be a case of embedded behaviour (the roost thing is not an issue, so don't sweat that). I'd be inclined to put her in the slow cooker, to be honest.

 

[lbierly]

thank you for your reply I did read the article and so far it sounds like i have just about everything right. I have now had to remove the other Australorp from the run, for some reason they don't like the barnevelders. Looks like dinner to me. I agree with you Allymally. I Just thought it would be nice to have fresh eggs. I have bantams and they all get along great. Just thought I would build another coop and add standard chickens, bantams are easy. Hoping things get better.

 

[Allymally]

Hi just reporting my pecking behaviour has stopped thank goodness, I couldn't have even contemplated putting the culprit in the slow cooker!! Just used the spray for a few days and voila problem gone, however been looking at the threads for broody chickens cause you've guessed it I've now moved onto the next trial in chicken keeping, how to stop my broody chicken from being broody. Having followed the threads I've tried turfing her out of the nest box and closing the pop hole, but my other chickens want in to lay!! And when they do there she is at the door waiting to chance her luck. Tonight I've boarded off the nest boxes, now just waiting to see where that takes us, but she's quite crafty, fortunately not aggressive and will just wait for her chance, an opportunist is what she is, bless her !!