Help, Layers always fighting!

reelmza

Chirping
Apr 2, 2020
44
101
56
North East, Nigeria
My one year old (brown coloured) hybrid layers always beat up their mates.

When i separate the beat up layers to a different room, they gang up the weaker ones among them too, I'm now out of empty Pens and i cant mix up the other layers back with their mates.

Total layers: 63

Main Pen Size: 5 x 2.5 Meters (I will call this Room 1)

Layers in Room 1: 55

Layers Hated: four in Room 2 & and three in Room 3



Please help, some also got bumble foot at chronic stage. Some videos suggest i cut it open and treat it!
 
Hello @reelmza so happy you joined Backyard chickens from Northeast Nigeria! You said you have chickens for commercial purposes, would you tell us more about that? Do you sell eggs, meat or live chickens?
Yes sir, i sell the eggs from the layers and i sell the layers too when they get old for meat 😂lol, i used to bring up broilers but the weather is always hot here so they all die most of the time.

So now am a full time layers guy😄
 
Hello reelmza,

from what it seems by your pictures there are far too many chickens in this room, so if you have the facilities I would advise to divide the number in half .

In addition I would suggest the following:

1. Set up wooden roosts so they can retreat and get some rest if need be.
2. You might want to provide some tubs with fine fresh sand for dust-bathing, which reduces stress and aggressive behaviour.
3. To avoid boredom and distract them from pecking and bullying the other hens you could provide some fresh vegetables i.e. carrots or broccoli or even some apples or corncobs.
4. You could even mount some feeders and water suspenders up on a second level so the bullied chickens will be able to eat and drink as well.
5. What kind of bedding do you use? And how often do you clean out and change the bedding? The bedding I see in the picture looks quite rough and hard, so maybe this could be the reason for the bumble foot problem.
 
If you use sand, you can get something like a cat litter scoop, or something similar to scoop and sift the poop from the sand. It will keep your coop so much cleaner and decrease likelihood for bumblefoot! Did you say you were not able to let your hens free range? Do you have the chickens just for yourself and your family or do you sell the eggs as a source of income? If they are just for your family and you are unable to let them out of the coop, could you consider in the future having fewer chickens to avoid overcrowding? It's tough sometimes with chickens... I went from 11 to 19 and suddenly my coop is overcrowded too so I've got to find an alternative solution!
I raise them for commercial purposes mam, theres a lot of free rooms ill distribute the layers evenly tomorrow... and about the sand its not big deal..... i can take it out every month and put new ones

✊thanks!
 
Also, if you use a shovel with holes in it, so sand goes through and poop stays on the shovel. You can clean a whole room in less than 20 minutes, and not need to replace the bedding. Saving the poop would be a smart idea, that way you will not only have eggs and meat to sell, but you can sell the manure(poop) to farms as fertilizer. In fact, sometimes collecting the poop as fertilizer can be pretty profitable!

Edit: I also want to say that many fish farms are usually interested in buying chicken manure for a good price. As they often use it to feed fish with, or feed their worm farms to feed their fish, or to feed the pond to get more zooplankton. No matter how they do it, they usually want chicken poop! 😉
 
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Do they go outside? Overcrowding and boredom from not getting outside to roam is likely the problem. What are you feeding them? Are they on a balanced chicken feed? What is the protein percentage? Most grown chickens need 4 square feet of room per chicken, and outside they need even more room. Here is some reading about feather picking:
https://poultry.extension.org/artic...ibalism-in-small-and-backyard-poultry-flocks/
 
Hello reelmza,

from what it seems by your pictures there are far too many chickens in this room, so if you have the facilities I would advise to divide the number in half .

In addition I would suggest the following:

1. Set up wooden roosts so they can retreat and get some rest if need be.
2. You might want to provide some tubs with fine fresh sand for dust-bathing, which reduces stress and aggressive behaviour.
3. To avoid boredom and distract them from pecking and bullying the other hens you could provide some fresh vegetables i.e. carrots or broccoli or even some apples or corncobs.
4. You could even mount some feeders and water suspenders up on a second level so the bullied chickens will be able to eat and drink as well.
5. What kind of bedding do you use? And how often do you clean out and change the bedding? The bedding I see in the picture looks quite rough and hard, so maybe this could be the reason for the bumble foot problem.
Its a North Nigerian groundnut shaft. its pretty hard, because in my town...saw dust is hard to get.

But thank you alot, i feel sort of guilty for this chickens stress its time for a change!! ✊
 
Yes sand? i can get a lot of that. i live in a partial desert, there's much sand.

thanks💜💜
If you use sand, you can get something like a cat litter scoop, or something similar to scoop and sift the poop from the sand. It will keep your coop so much cleaner and decrease likelihood for bumblefoot! Did you say you were not able to let your hens free range? Do you have the chickens just for yourself and your family or do you sell the eggs as a source of income? If they are just for your family and you are unable to let them out of the coop, could you consider in the future having fewer chickens to avoid overcrowding? It's tough sometimes with chickens... I went from 11 to 19 and suddenly my coop is overcrowded too so I've got to find an alternative solution!
 

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