Henpecked

[PD-Riverman]

I just reintroduced my Easter Egger to the flock, and I realize that could be what is going on, but they have always picked on her. She is not severely injured, just starting to lose some feathers and have some scabs. I want to intervene early before the problem gets too serious.

You might have to reintroduce her to the flock by putting her in a dog cage so they can see her but not attack her. Once a chicken gets pecked to the point of bleeding, the rest will or can peck/eat her alive till she dies. I have had to remove all the hens, put the reintroduced chicken with the rooster, then in a couple days add another hen, and another in a couple more days. Has worked most of the time. BUT I would give her away before I allowed the others to tear her up.

 

[Ol Grey Mare]

Another option for helping to reintegrate a bird to the flock is to take a friendly bird from the main flock, house it with the isolated bird for a couple of weeks so they "buddy up" and then put both back into the flock at the same time. Not only can this help to give the lone bird a bond with another bird, but putting two targets into the flock rather than just one can help to ease some of the focus of the initial re-introduction picking that goes on and lessen the chances of the low bird taking all of it and ending up picked into needing to be isolated again.

 

[PD-Riverman]

Another thing you can do is see if its mainly one or two hens that start the attacking----if So I have caught them and put them in "jail"/cage for a week or two---that has helped.