My 11 mo. old frizzle cochin bantam hen (more like a frazzle) has very sparse, brittle feathers looked a little stressed during a recent cold spell. Because you can see so much skin through her feathers, I thought I'd give her a break for two nights in the back bathroom tub. (I have a partially open southern-style coop (Dallas area) that is just fine for my 5 standard hens.) She still free ranged with the others those two days. I put her back in the coop overnite. In the morning, I found her trapped in the corner, pecked to bloody hell by the big girls. A 2x2.5 inch patch with no skin left and 3 more decent sized wounds. So....back to the tub for 6 days! Wounds healed miraculously with just neosporine...eating and laying. I put her out with the others to roam during the day but she runs from the rest of the flock and with good reason. She's active but all by her half-naked self. (She wasn't the low gal in the pecking order before.) She always snuggled with the EE on the roost, but she's as bad as the rest now. Without a decent coat of feathers and given her size....how do I re-integrate her. Maybe putting her in the coon live trap inside the coop a roosting time to protect her but still let the others get use to her again? Anybody ever used a hen saddle with a "shoulder" attachment (I saw one online)? Thanks for any ideas!!!
no joy in bantam land, keep her in the house the kids will love it. Sorry to hear about the trouble, not much you can do but keep her seperate till she heals up then introduce her but keep her seperate dog kennel, something like that and see what happens.
