Hen pecked silkie roo

[cparkerpants]

Hi all, I have a silkie rooster that is pretty friendly. He is having a hard time with his hens. They have completely pecked the poof off of his head. He has a Friar Tuck hair do. I have tried applying Blu Kote, which he tolerates, but as soon as his white feathers poke up at all, they are plucked. They are pretty peaceful to each other over all. I could look into housing him seperately at night, because I think the plucking happens when they are cooped up. I'm only hesitating to do this because I'm trying to integrate my new birds into the flock & don't want to change too much all at once. Any advice is apprectiated!!

 

[FuzzyCritters]

Do you have any other silkies or crested breeds? If he is the only one with a crest, the hens will peck it because it is "weird" to them. With more than one crested chicken, it's more normal for the other chickens, so they may not peck the crest.

 

[cparkerpants]

No - he’s the only one. A friend didn’t want him and we didn’t have a rooster at the time. We have RIRs & a handful of non-crested juveniles. 3/6 are crowing, so we seem to have a bit of a rooster problem :/