hen survived hawk attack

[turkey]

after 7 weeks and 52 staples later my lil girl is healthy and ready to go back with her 5 sisters. problem is her sisters do not remember her and are not accepting her back. They try to bit her. I gave up today and brought her back inside to a large play pen. what can I do to get the others to accept her again? She survived the attack and I spent too much on her to now see her picked on so badly.. Help please.

 

[chickerdoodle]

Lucky little hen to survive an attack and a good owner for helping her through it!

The best things to try is:

1. Put her back at night--slip onto the roost

OR

2. Put her in an area right next to the coop so they can all see each other for a week or so then slip her onto roost at night.

OR--my best idea:

3. Pick one other docile hen to put with her in an area right next to the main coop so they all see each other for a few days to a week and then slip them both back on the roost at night.
This allows her to have a buddy to stay with if the gals are still a little grumpy about her coming back into the flock and less likely to disturb the pecking order.

 

[RedfogsFlock]

Well an animal attack is always a bad thing. We just went through it when our standard poodle got into our coop. We had a hen that was paralyzed. When it came time to go back, we introduced her during free range time in the back yard over some feed. At first her sisters chased her and pecked her so we set her up in the roost at night with a fence between them for awhile. Hens bond over feeding, and free range is less stressful for them. Worth a try!

 

[Chickengal505]

all of the above are good ideas but if the hens are not as accepting now try introducing one at a time kinnda like this OK... so introduce her to the calmest then introduce her to the next calmest hen while her buddy is there and move up the doctile scale calmest to the most testy untill they are all one big family again!

(P.S) this may take weeks or one day depends on how big the flock is