- Apr 3, 2013
- 4
- 0
- 9
Hi all - Great to be among chicken friends. Having a problem, need help asap. Not a new chicken owner, my last hen before these lived to be 17 yrs. old! But I'm at a loss right now. On Easter Sunday, w/no warning & out of the blue after many many years of owning chickens & allowing free roam, my (5) free-roam chickens (1 roo & 4 hens), were attacked by a fox (or foxes?). Ultimately my fault/my responsibility, but I've been so upset & am just guilt-ridden & devastated. All were killed w/exception of one hen, which my husband was able to chase the fox off of before he killed her and/or tried to run away w/her. He had her subdued, but other than pull some feathers out, she was okay. The roo was like a ship captain & went down w/his ship, as his was the only body we found, badly mutilated. He was one evil fellow, as he chased/attacked everything/anything that moved, including me, my husband, my dog, my cats, anything that moved. I literally couldn't go out of my house w/o a broom or something to protect myself with, he had just gotten his spurs in the last couple months (they were almost a year old). I couldn't even walk to get in my car w/o the roo attacking me, but of course I miss him most regardless, we had a love-hate relationship, I loved him no matter what, but he despised me & everyone else. It was to the point where I was afraid he was going to attack someone & I was gonna be sued after a "roo attack". He did jump on the UPS man, who thankfully had on tall boots & long pants & kicked the crap out of him to get him off. Anyhoo, I miss him just awful, may he RIP. Sorry, got off track, crying yet again. Back to my problem. Now left w/just the one hen (a black sex-link), on Monday & Tuesday, all my lone hen did was act bewildered & pace, pace, pace in her pull-around-the-yard pen, I shut her up in hen house at night. I read on-line that chickens don't like being alone, so went last night at dusk Tuesday night & bought 3 adult Barred Rock hens off of CL. Put them in w/her overnight that night, all was okay till sun-up, then the expected "pecking order" started. There are 2 dominant ones out of the 3 I bought, they beat up my hen to where she runs away (yes she has places to run to get away from them). My hen drew blood on one of them while fighting back, so I put my hen in the pull-around yard, while leaving the 3 newbies in the hen house w/attached small run. I pulled the pull-around pen right against the small run attached to my hen house so they were able to see each other all day. All 3 newbies laid eggs Wednesday, my hen stopped (although she had layed every day in the last month, even after the fox attack). What do I do? Do I persist in letting her in there w/them, & let the pecking order continue? How much is too much? All my hen does is ram the side of the small run on the back of my hen house, trying to get away/get out. That's all she concentrates on & seems SO upset. I only got the new ones as she was all alone, if I had been left w/just 2 chickens out of my original 5 I would have left well enough alone. Then I only got the 3 as the lady that had them didn't want them separated (she was downsizing her backyard small flock of approx. 20 chickens). Help, help, help. I LOVE my chickens, I LOVED the ones that were killed, but fate had plans that I never had experienced before. I never realized the grief. The chickens I've had over the last almost 20 years all passed at the end of their lives, I would never kill any, nothing else ever killed any (till now), and I would never get rid of any no matter how old they got, or whether they laid or didn't, or whether they were meaner than a rattlesnake (like the roo I just lost). I have unconditional love for animals/pets & again am devastated about all this. Please don't reply w/hate mails, or "you should have known", etc. etc. After almost 20 years & never having had a problem, & my free-roam chickens have all been SO happy, I had no reason to expect what befell them, but it did & I can't change it now. I walked my property on Easter Sunday evening/night for hours, walking over my 10 acres, hoping & praying I'd find another survivor hidden somewhere or that they'd come walking out from the underbrush, but I guess it wasn't meant to be. Again I'm just heartsick over my loss, but then became concerned about the one remaining & thought it best to not let her get used to being alone, thought the longer she went by herself, the worse it would be to try to introduce new ones, ha ha, jokes on me, I am a wreck now thru all this. I thought about starting over w/chicks, but knew it would take forever before they'd grow to the point where I could even attempt to put them with her. Anyways, any help on what to do, I put them all together again last night after dark inside my hen house, my hen & 2 of the others I put on the roosting post (which is where my now gone chickens always slept), one of the dominant hens jumped in one of my nest boxes so she slept in there. I put my hen in the middle of the other 2. Now sun-up is here Thursday a.m., the chicken poop's hitting the fan again, I found her cowering/shaking in one of the hiding spots I made sure she could get to. Help, help, help, I don't know what to do & am so distraught over losing my other chickens, & now worrying about how to fix things so my hen & the 3 newbies can at least be somewhat harmonious, if not like "ooh-ahh" to each other, at least not to beat the daylights out of each other. I've now put my hen out in the pull-around yard pen this morning w/the less-dominant one of the 3 newbies, but she's still panic-stricken & petrified & just runs back/forth relentlessly, squawking, trying to find a way "away" from this hen. This hen is less agressive than the other 2, but still dominating my hen. I feel like I've failed all the way around, so please don't beat me up, this is just awful & I'm broken down & feel no matter what I do now, I've probably just made everything that much worse. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Sincerely - Fran 
(
(
Last edited:
