I am pretty new to chickens, I raised five beautiful Barred Plymouth Rocks last year and installed them in a great coop and animal proof 12 x 14' run. We have had a tough winter and in early January I noticed that my chickens were getting board and were pecking each others bums! I went to a feed store an got some peck stop and I painted the pecked areas, but they seemed to let it wear off and then resumed a couple of days later!
Two were particularly bad so I dashed to the workshop and built a mini coop that I installed in my greenhouse. I then extracted the two with the hope that they would grow back their feathers and be ready to join the others in a month or so. Unfortunately this did not happen as the two continued to peck each other! Frustrated I integrated them back to the other three in the yard, where upon WW3 started as they sorted out who is the boss. More feathers were lost and all now have bare bums and the worst two peckers have bald heads too! I then thought that they must still be bored so I added toys, took away the food hopper and fed them on the ground, made a better dusting area and hung a cabbage to peck at. Still more pecking so I went to the next level. I have a large fenced back garden and I live in the country so I let them go more free range. All was good, no pecking and happy chickens. On the second day I was told by my neighbour that a Raccoon was in my yard and was eyeying up the chickens during the later afternoon. I put the chickens back in, but the pecking is still an issue.
I also have five more chicks on the way that are now two weeks old and I want to stamp out this pecking before I introduce them to the flock.
It seems I have some options,
1. get rid of the two worst peckers
2. let them all out and hope they don't get eaten by the raccoon
3. build a bigger run
4. let the peckers out during the day and see if they get eaten
5. catch the raccoon and hope that more don't turn up
6. let them continue pecking each other and see how they fair in the run.
What do I do?
I posted this also on the 'Pest and Predators' page but this thread seems to be around the topic I am thinking about
There are lots of possibilities. First, I'm making the assumption that all 5 are hens. Is that true?
The fact that they started pecking at their butts is likely significant (as opposed to feather picking, which is a different issue). Most chickens peck at bare skin or injured areas on their flockmates, so in all likelihood something happened to start this whole process, and it was perpetuated by boredom and close proximity.
The things that I always think of with bum pecking are mites, soft or pasty droppings, lack of nestbox privacy, injury, or prolapse, although there are probably other things that would also cause attention to that area specifically
Mites are common in the winter, and although they infest the entire body, they tend to concentrate around the vent (the chicken butt). They rarely cause itching or other outward signs. When the infestation is significant, they often cause inflammation, scabbing, and sometimes serum oozing through the skin around the vent. That can mat down feathers, expose skin, and cause picking.
Chickens should have two types of droppings, regular ones and cecal paste. The cecal paste is a sticky, usually dark brown, smelly glop of unformed yuck that has the consistency of thick pudding mixed with glue, and most chickens expel it 2-5 times daily. Regular droppings should be formed, more firm than soft, greenish to brownish, with a "white cap" of urates on top (their version of urine). Due to their hormones, sometimes hens that are laying will have excessive water mixed with their droppings, so it can become soft to the point of not being formed. Anything that changes the consistency of the droppings can cause more of it to stick to the feathers than normal, which can mat down the fluff, expose skin, and stimulate pecking. The most common things that cause this are worms, poor quality food, huge amounts of treats without a transition period, and rarely viral infections. Free ranging tends to help with this because the birds are eating more grass, which is very helpful, they aren't confined to a small area for foraging so they decrease their exposure to new parasites, and they usually dustbathe more frequently and deeper into the ground, so it breaks up the feather matting. They also eat bugs and worms and often baby birds and baby mice and anything else that fits down their throat (and sometimes things that are too big, such as the time I saw my white rock hen flailing around years ago, ran outside and found her comb and waddles blue from lack of oxygen and an adult mouse stuck half way down her throat -- luckily I was able to pull it out before she choked to death). Some birds need higher protein in their diets than others, and some birds need animal protein. I feed the vegetarian layer pellets (because poultry food is last on the list to get meat products, long after human consumption and pet foods, so the quality of the meat that goes into poultry food is disgusting) but then supplement with small amounts of cooked fish during the winter when there's not as many bugs available. However, low protein diets are more often associated with feather picking than specifically butt pecking.
Lack of nestbox privacy can be a huge problem for confined hens with bored flockmates. When a hen lays an egg, she has to stand up and bear down as the egg comes out. For a few moments the oviduct (the tube that the egg comes through) is partially pushed out with the egg, about 1/2 - 1 inch, then it goes back in immediately. It is pink to red and highly exposed at that moment. If another hen is standing near the hen that is laying, the other hen will likely peck at the pink tissue, injuring the area around the vent. Usually it's a minor injury, but chickens are cannibals and any injury is an excuse to peck. Providing nestboxes that are in a dimly lit area, are positioned such that it is difficult for a second hen to closely watch egg laying, or believe it or not, curtains across the front of the boxes have all been shown to decrease injury due to nestbox issues. A prolapse is when the oviduct is pushed out during egg laying, but fails to return back inside. Some prolapses are just the 1/2-1" length, and other's extrude out three inches or more. These are very serious injuries requiring strict isolation from other birds plus additional medical treatment immediately.
Injuries to birds can happen in hundreds of ways, and often we never figure out what happened. I had three birds get lacerations near their vents last year, for the first time ever. They were all birds from the same flock that roost together at night and comingle with other flocks during the day. They are my oldest and most dominant flock, have occupied the same coop without injury for 7 years, and do not fight with the other flocks when comingling. These were lacerations in the skin, not pecking injuries, but would have led to pecking injuries in younger flocks had they not been discovered. The injuries happened weeks apart, and to birds that tended to sleep on the lower rungs of the roost. The injuries stopped after the more aggressive rooster started sleeping on the floor of the house, right in front of the open pop door (the house is inside a predator proof run, so the pop door is always open for them to get in and out of the house). We suspected that a rat got into the house and reached up to the "low hanging" chicken butts, but will never know. We put an infrared game camera in the coop, but the only interesting pictures we got were of the aggressive rooster trying to kill the game camera, then when it didn't die he went to get the dominant rooster for a consult. The dominant rooster stared at it, cocked his head from side to side a few times as if deep in thought, then they both just accepted it.
As far as your options, I would start by treating for mites, deworming, and making sure that they are on a well balanced diet, if not already done. I would also treat any pecking wounds daily until all areas are healed and feather cover has returned, as the layer of medication has to be maintained for it to work.
By way of housing, a 12X14 foot run is too small for 5, and especially for 10 chickens if they don't get out to free range, IMO (I know, it's much larger than published minimum standards, but there's a big difference between living and just staying alive, so "agricultural" standards aren't usually the most humane way to raise our animals, and frustrated animals tend to injure each other). So if you don't find a way to safely free range, you really need a bigger chicken yard. But there are lots of different styles of "free ranging." Most people think of just letting birds out of their overnight roost to run everywhere, which is wonderful, but most chickens are still very happy with some limits imposed on them.
Many people do rotational paddocks, where the main chicken yard is considered the "sacrifice area" (because the landscaping and grass get destroyed), but the birds are let out every day to one of 3 or 4 or 5 different fenced areas (paddocks). The paddocks can be any size, depending on how much land you have and how much predator protection you need to install, but the paddocks have everything in them that happy chickens need -- grass to graze, dirt to scratch, dust to bathe in, overhead cover to hide under, and enough room to run, flap their wings, and get away from any flockmates that are bullies. Once they start to wear down the grass or the other landscaping, they get moved to another paddock and the first area is allowed to recover. Typically birds are moved weekly through four different paddocks, which gives a full three weeks for every area to recover, but lots of people customize that schedule.
If you don't want to build permanent paddocks, there are lots of options for rotating chickens around that are temporary, but still give lots of protection. There are the traditional "chicken tractors," which are designed to be a permanent house that is moveable. Lots of people like them, but I find most of them to be too small to keep the flock happy, and too heavy to move easily, so I don't use them. Here's a link to numerous electronetting options:
http://www.premier1supplies.com/c/fencing/electric_netting/. It's not super cheap, but it's a one time investment for long term safety, and flexibility. The netting and posts are extremely lightweight, and the posts are attached to the netting so it's easy to install and take down a fence in just a few minutes. I can carry 164 feet of netting (which is the length of one unit) plus everything I need to install it in one arm, and the electric charger in the other arm, walk out to any area of my property and set up the fence in 10-15 minutes (ok, it did take longer the first time, but it's so easy that it's a really quick learning curve). That's everything needed to set up a fairly safe free range area anywhere I want it, from barn door to "follow me girls" in less time than it takes to eat breakfast. I usually hook multiple units together, but my paddocks are 1/2 - one acre each, so they take a bit longer, and I leave the netting in place and rotate the birds. But it's designed for quick installation and takedown, and just a single unit would give you a 12 X 70 foot run that you could move whenever you wanted and be relatively predator safe, and 2 units would change that area from a 12 X 70 foot run to a 94 X 70 foot playyard!
If you have hawks or eagles that you're worried about, look into post #141 on this thread, which describes a really nice moveable large pen with netting on the cheap.
Regarding raccoons, sometimes it's best to remove them and sometimes not. If you have a raccoon that's a proven problem, then of course it needs to go. The problem is there's always more around, so what moves in may not be any better. Raccoons are very territorial, especially the males, so I never remove the ones that aren't causing problems because they keep new ones from moving in. There is one huge male that "owns" the territory on my property. He lives within the perimeter fencing that keep dogs and coyotes out. He has been here for years, and I've never had a problem with him or his females or offspring. I have no doubt that he's tested every lock and latch and connector on every coop I have, but since he's never been able to get in he stops trying. A new group would test everything for themselves, and might find a weakness somewhere in my pens. Raccoons usually attack chickens at night, so the birds are likely to be safe during the day, if your raccoon follows the rules. But you can't count on that, hence the electronetting.
If there's no pecking when the birds free range, and the birds aren't aggressive or undesirable in some way, I wouldn't get rid of the two "peckers." I'd use them as sentinels to tell me when the flock is stressed, and make the necessary management changes when they start having issues.
Another option, although not one that everyone wants, is to get a rooster. That changes the whole dynamic of the flock, so many behavioral problems between hens go away, and they can help keep the flock safer when free ranging. If you do get a rooster, however, a larger run or free ranging becomes more important, as hens trapped in a small run with a rooster can get stressed easily
Hope this helps.
