High anxiety chicken

[LynnPG]

I received two Easter Egger chickens about 3 weeks ago. One Easter egg chicken by herself has no problem being part of the rest of my chicken flock. She goes in at night to roost and free ranges with all the chickens.

The other Easter Egger chicken has such high anxiety she chirps all the time like as in a panic chirp. It causes the other Easter Egger chicken to go looking for her and stay with her were she is hiding. It also causes the hens to be upset with her, and the Hens give her a light peck as to say calm down. She won't go in and roots at night and causes the other EE chick to do the same. When I put her in at night to roast, she won't come out in the morning, and tries to hide in the nest boxes. She won't come out of hiding and that makes the other EE too stay with her in hiding.

I separated her and took her out of the flock for a couple of days by herself in her own little coop house. While the other chickens are free-range they would go by where she is her housed, because she would still chirp that Panic high anxiety chirp, and I found the other EE outside the fencing just staying with her and not eating or going home it its own coop.

My rooster and guinea hen will go and lay next to her where she hides, in the coop and when separated at her house coop. They have never peck at her.

I don't know what to do with this little Easter Egger. I think I'm going to have to get rid of her. She causes such a disruption, and my older hens giving her an occasional little peck for her to calm down is not helping her anxiety, and as long as she has that anxiety she's going to keep making the older hens tell her to calm down.

Help

The one on the left is the high anxiety

That is the coup where I had her housed for a couple of days

This is the big coup 8x12 chicken coop house 24x24 enclosed run top to bootom inclosed, plus almost 2 acres of land to run when let out to free range. We have hawks, turkey vultures, regular vultures, Eagles. So unless I'm out they don't free range if I'm out working my backyard they free-range. Ready lost one chicken to a hawk because I went inside to take care of laundry. Thus 24x24 full encloser

 

[Heidi65]

I have two EE's and they are our favorites and the most amusing of our girls. Have your tried giving her special attention, holding her, cuddling her and such? Maybe if she realizes that nobody is going to hurt her maybe she will come out of her shell so to speak. Ours will come and jump onto our lap and just go to sleep.

One was attacked when she was little by one of our dogs and we took her to the vet. Basically at the neck the feathers were pull off to the meat at her neck so the vet sewed the feathers back on. She has become our daughter's favorite and when Kari (daughter) goes outside and calls her name, Forest, she will come running to her like a puppy. The one in my Avatar in Niagara, my little fluffy face

 

[LynnPG]

I have two EE's and they are our favorites and the most amusing of our girls.  Have your tried giving her special attention, holding her, cuddling her and such?  Maybe if she realizes that nobody is going to hurt her maybe she will come out of her shell so to speak.  Ours will come and jump onto our lap and just go to sleep. 

One was attacked when she was little by one of our dogs and we took her to the vet.  Basically at the neck the feathers were pull off to the meat at her neck so the vet sewed the feathers back on.  She has become our daughter's favorite and when Kari (daughter) goes outside and calls her name, Forest, she will come running to her like a puppy. The one in my Avatar in Niagara, my little fluffy face

Yes we have given her a lot of attention, souch so that my Marans has become jelious and now follows me everywhere. But to no avail she stays hidden. I'm going to give her four more weeks, she'll be three months and see where it goes

 

[aart]

Some of my EE's have been pretty darn skittish, especially when they were young.

Curious as to how you integrated these new birds into your flock,
did they spend any time next to but physically separated from the flock before allowing them full access?

She obviously doesn't feel safe so is panicked.
I doubt the pecks from older birds are them 'saying.. calm down' .

Separating her just starts the integration process over, so I'm not surprised it didn't help.

Hmm...not sure what to suggest...have to think on it.