I know French Faverolles are always at the bottom of any pecking order. However as I'm going to be gone for better part of two months, I took my 2 hens to a friend's place for boarding while I'm gone. My friend has a Cochin buff hen with 10 two month old chicks. My 2 faverolles entered the chicken pen with the hen & chicks and the feathers flew!
I knew there would be pecking order to sort out, but assumed the actually pecking would cease after a while. Nope, now that Mama hen knows she can kick the arse of my 2 Faverolle hens, Mama hen does so frequently just for kicks. My dilema is how to get this mess sorted out, if at all possible. The ultimate solution may be to just put my 2 birds in seperate quarters - however, maybe there is something else that can be done? How have you all dealt with problems from mixing flocks? I was thinking maybe some 'peck-no-more' stuff (rub on bits of hen that gets pecked, and it tastes bad enough to make aggressor bird think twice before attacking). Any other ideas?
I knew there would be pecking order to sort out, but assumed the actually pecking would cease after a while. Nope, now that Mama hen knows she can kick the arse of my 2 Faverolle hens, Mama hen does so frequently just for kicks. My dilema is how to get this mess sorted out, if at all possible. The ultimate solution may be to just put my 2 birds in seperate quarters - however, maybe there is something else that can be done? How have you all dealt with problems from mixing flocks? I was thinking maybe some 'peck-no-more' stuff (rub on bits of hen that gets pecked, and it tastes bad enough to make aggressor bird think twice before attacking). Any other ideas?
