Different color chicks getting picked on question...

[phishless13]

So I have 23 chicks. 3 of which are white in color (white wyandotte/BCM mix). I also have a FBCM with the chicks who is a couple weeks older. Today i noticed the FBCM picking on the white chicks but none of the others who are all dark in color (for the most part). Up until today everyone was getting along great. My question is... Will chickens pick on another breed due to color difference? Is my FBCM a racist? (I couldn't resist inserting a joke)

 

[azygous]

Chickens are apt to single out and focus their attention on anything that is singularly different. Chicks do it. Adult chickens do it. If there is anything different about any one or two individuals, they will zero in on it.

The trick to getting them not to do this is to desensitize them by adding more of the same color and size objects to their environment so they are less apt to see the white chicks as something unusual.

Find some white objects that are of the same size as the white chicks and toss them about in the brooder or run. If there are many white chick-size objects sitting around, it calls attention to there being many more than just the few white chicks. Very quickly, within minutes, the chicks become immune to all of the white objects, including the white chicks.

I've seen this work when I've had to put pinless peepers on one of the hens to keep her from picking on the others. Unless I also toss a half dozen or so pinless peepers on the ground when I return this hen to the flock, the flock will attack her because she is now "different". The peepers scattered on the ground lure their attention away from the hen. In minutes, the hen is accepted and her new peepers are totally ignored, as are the peepers scattered on the ground because there are so many that they are no longer unusual.

Give it a try.

 

[phishless13]

I just googled pinless peepers and i am not sure i want to put those on the ground or on a chickens face. I will take your advice though. I may toss some tennis balls in the brooder...

 

[Ridgerunner]

Sometimes chicks or adult chickens do single out certain others to pick on. It’s not always obvious why. I had a broody hen hatch out a couple of chicks but also had some hatch in an incubator a day later, so I tried to give those chicks to her. I’ve done that before with no problems. The chicks she hatched were red and the incubator chicks were both red and black. She accepted the red incubator chicks and would not accept the black ones. I think she bonded with the two red ones she hatched so that color was OK but the black ones looked different. Earlier in the year she had raised a mixed color brood of chicks, black as well as red, but this time was different.

I had a chick about 1-1/2 weeks old kill one of its siblings while with a broody hen. I did not realize what had killed that chick at the time. A couple of days later I saw the chick attacked another sibling, clearly with the intention of killing it. I took the bully away from the broody and left it isolated for a full day, then put it back with the broody and other chicks. The attacks stopped. The two chicks it attacked were different colors.

I don’t know how old your younger chicks are or how long those were together with no problems. I don’t know how vicious those attacks really were. I don’t know if they are still in down or in some stage of feathering out. Maybe that older chick saw some red blood in the shafts of the new feathers and was pecking that. The blood might be more visible in those chicks than darker chicks. It could be something entirely different. A certain amount of pecking is not unusual, they are working on the pecking order. But this can turn deadly. If a single chick is being singled out for repeated pecking, especially around the head, it needs to be addressed.

I’ll assume it is all three white chicks, not just one. Chickens can be bullies. Bullies normally pick on the weakest. That’s true in the chicken world too.

I understand many people have no problems at all raising chicks two weeks apart in age in the same brooder but that can be a fairly large size difference as well as maturity different. I don’t know what triggered that attack but when I have one attacking another I generally address the bully. I’d isolate the older chick for a day or two, then try putting it back with the others. That might or might not work. With living animals you never know. That may solve the problem or it may be that two weeks is too big a gap in age with that particular chick’s personality at this stage in its life.

There is nothing wrong with trying Azygous’s suggestion either. There is a certain amount of trial and error on this. I certainly don’t always get it right.

Good luck!

 

[azygous]

I was using the pinless peepers as an example of how a lot of the same thing can neutralize the effect of something that is different that the chickens are focusing on. You can't put pinless peepers on chicks. They wouldn't fit.

Make sure the tennis balls are the same color as the chicks getting picked on.