Flock Bullying One Hen

[gardenrue7]

Hello, everyone!

We have a flock of 9 hens. 4 were our original flock, and we added 5 new chicks this year. We followed all protocols for adding chicks to an existing flock, and at first it went very well. However, as of this morning, we’ve had two instances in the past month where one chicken has been pecked and bullied, leaving injuries on her neck.

The chicken being bullied is a cookies and cream hen. She does appear to have some polish in her based on her hair. I tried trimming her hair so she could see better in the hopes that it might also stop the bullying, but we had another instance this morning.

She’s currently in our “chicken hospital.” She’s eating and drinking well, and I’ve applied antibiotic spray.

She’s the sweetest hen. How do we prevent this from happening going forward, or is it a situation where she would be better in a flock of other polish chickens?

Thank you for your help! We’ve not had experience dealing with this before.

 

[sourland]

Sadly, in a mixed flock crested birds frequently have their crests pecked out which can escalate to scalping.

 

[Pigs mom]

We just had to cull one of our hens who was being relentlessly bullied. All of her head feathers were missing and she was bleeding. While holding her, we discovered a large tumor on her chest. My guess is that the rest of the flock knew she was sick and were attempting to cull her themselves. Not saying this is the case with yours, but maybe try and see if there are any underlying illnesses she has that the others may see as her being weak.