Hen not being accepted into flock.

[horselover1999]

Right now it is that the others ignore her completely. She is just way to scared of them to get down off of the roost. I have to put the others in the coop and have only her and her sister and brother out in the run for her to even consider eating and drinking.

 

[Goulais Girl]

Right now it is that the others ignore her completely. She is just way to scared of them to get down off of the roost. I have to put the others in the coop and have only her and her sister and brother out in the run for her to even consider eating and drinking.

Unfortunately I had a similar experience with my two Easter eggers, my sex links terrorized them, I finally caved and gave them away to a large farm where they are now thriving! And my bossy girls are happy to have their coop back! I tried for about 2 months and couldn't integrate them.

 

[horselover1999]

She is the only one deciding to stay on the roost. The pecking order is completely worked out. The only problems they had were two days ago when the mean girls were picking on her. When I locked her out of the coop yesterday she avoided all of them, which was mostly at the feeder and waterer. I had to lock the others in the coop for her to even put her face near the feeder. She is the the top chicken among the silkies. So she is really just scared of the standard chickens. But the standards are not bothering her anymore...

 

[azygous]

What you are dealing with is a low self-esteem chicken, partly due to her breed disposition and her personal temperament. It is possible to rehabilitate a chicken with this problem, but it requires a bit of work on your part.

What I do is to prepare a safe pen in the run, and I place the timid bird in this enclosure with food and water. She's still in the run with the flock, but she gets a few weeks of "vacation" where she can let her guard down and relax, gain weight and self confidence. When she is returned to the flock, she may be better able to find a comfortable place in the flock.

To maintain normalcy, you will need to take her into the coop each night and then place her in her safe pen each morning. My shy hen very quickly learned her pen was where she should go in the morning so I didn't need to do anything more than to open the gate and close it.

 

[horselover1999]

We have a wire crate that we used to integrate the silkies when they were little. Right now there is a branch for playing on right where it would go. I was already thinking of making it smaller because they can only roost on half of it. Her brother was crippled by being trapped under the ramp that goes into the coop (now blocked off) and cannot physically go into the coop at night. He can be her buddy during the day. What is ironic about him being trapped under the ramp is that my dad was thinking about blocking it off that morning. That was also the day that I got my first egg.

 

[azygous]

Keep us posted on how it goes. Good luck.

 

[horselover1999]

When I tried to put in the dog crate it was too big by 3 inches. I could not trim the branch in the run because the top part is keeping it upright. The place that I put it when they were little now has a chicken door. I either need to find a smaller crate or figure out something different.