- Mar 21, 2008
- 15
- 0
- 22
I had two chickens, about 7 weeks old, and one of them was recently eaten by an owl. After the attack, the survivor spent all of her time under the coop. Whenever she is in the coop, she just stays in there, even if the door is open. Whenever we put her outside the coop, she immediately runs under the coop. We figured she was probably scared, so we decided to get her some new friends. We went to the farm and got two new 7 week olds for her. We stuck them in the pen together overnight, and they were fine, but when we opened the coop in the morning, none of them came out. We figured it was because they didn't know where the door was so we herded them out. Once they were out, the two new ones looked around for a bit, but once the survivor got out, she ran under the coop as usual and the other two ran under with her. They stayed under there all day. I pushed them out a couple times, but then they'd just get all upset so I left them under there. The next day I tried putting them on the other end of the yard. The survivor immediately led them under the deck stairs and that's where they stayed for the day. They don't usually make much noise and hardly ever seem at ease like my chicken that got eaten was. The chicken that got eaten would explore around the yard all day eating worms. My flock now just hides. Is this something time will fix? Should I try separating the survivor from the new two and see if they explore? Has anyone had anything like this happen to them?