chicks getting beat up?

[Amastacia]

i have 15 assorted three and a half week old chicks. i just noticed today that two of them have been injured in the same way. their tails have then hurt, it looks like someone is ripping out a few of their tail feathers and making them bleed. they don't seem upset, but they are bleeding. i'm pretty sure this has happened today, since the blood is fresh and i didn't see it yesterday. only a few of their little feathers seem to be missing, but there is blood on the rest and on the tips of their wings (the part that touches the base of the tail, the wings aren't damaged).

any idea what is going on and what i should do about it?

i have them separated at the moment, but it isn't the best place for them and i don't really have anything better.

the container i'm using as a brooder for them is about 2 ft by 4 ft (oval, so it is harder to say for sure) but they are still small enough i don't think they are too crowded. and it doesn't seem to be a size issue, one of the two that is hurt is one of the largest chicks (a buff something) and the other is smaller but not the smallest. the smallest chick and the Polish chick are fine.

also, any idea how i can figure out which chick is hurting the others? i know one of the EEs was a bit more aggressive towards me, or at least less fond on being picked up. is it likely the same chick?

thanks.

 

[sourland]

They are overcrowded, and boredom is setting in. Time to move to a larger brooder/pen before this pecking escalates to cannibalism.

 

[Amastacia]

how much room do i need for 15 chicks until they are grown enough to go with my year old hens?

 

[Fred's Hens]

Having proper grow out facilities is a blind spot that many folks don't see coming, in many cases. The thought process involves a small tub for baby chicks, (which they quickly outgrow in 3 weeks) and the adult coop/run facility and that's about that many folks can imagine.

The reality is that to rotate in and rotate out birds of all ages, one really does find a grow out facility invaluable. This can be a temporary or permanent tractor or coop/run all of its own. 15 adolescents will need a good size coop for protection and a healthy sized run to dig, jump, scratch about, eat, drink, absorb fresh air and sunlight and grow to small adult sized chickens.

Integration of an entire second flock is often difficult. Some of us keep two or three complete facilities. Maybe we have a dozen layers in one facility, a dozen cockerels awaiting their fate in another, and juveniles in the third. Not to mention having different brooding and grow out facilities.

To answer your question, 15 chicks need a HUGE brooder this week, likely something akin to 4x8, but will need a complete chicken facility from 5 to 16 weeks in which to mature. At least this little post got you to thinking about things. Enjoy those chicks. They grow fast.

 

[Amastacia]

since i can't do anything for them at this moment (hopefully this evening or tomorrow) i've sprayed the injured two with blukote. hopefully that will help keep them from getting hurt too much more until i can get them something better. the other container i had for them really wasn't very good, i believe this is better.

 

[Amastacia]

i just realized i didn't mention, this weekend i was planning on getting the coop set up to move the chicks out there (section off an area to keep them separate from the hens). now i'm hoping i can get this done today or figure out something for the next few days. on the plus side, it should be warm enough from now on that they shouldn't have temperatures adding to their stresses.


when we got chicks last year, it was from TSC, and we thought they were at least a week old at the time. now that i get chicks where i know the day they hatched, i can say they were maybe 5 days old, no more. this has caused me to misjudge how long the brooder i have would be enough for them. just a few more days and it would have been all good. oh well. so far, no permanent damage to any of them, just a few with scruffy tails.

 

[Amastacia]

i noticed in a different thread that not having enough space at the feeder or waterer could also lead to this kind of an issue. i have a decent sized waterer, but the feeder i have at the moment is rather small. is this likely to be adding to the issues?

i know replacing the feeder or adding another won't solve the issue, especially as it will just make even less space in the brooder. i am about to go figure out what i can do to get them out into the coop, but think that i need to get a bigger feeder for them too.

 

[Amastacia]

ok, the chicks are in an enclosure in the coop, protected from the hens but with more space than they had in the brooder. i also got one of those trough type feeders so there is more space to get at food (i kept the little round one too, so there should be plenty now). i gave them a good sized cardboard box to stand on/hide in too. i will replace it as it gets gross.

and there are no more injuries than what i found yesterday, just the two poor chicks with purple butts (from the BluKote).

hopefully everything will go well until they are big enough to join the hens.