How can I stop Salty from plucking feathers off Pepper?

[ace6175]

I got both SLW at the same time, added to an existing flock. Salty is pretty aggressive, so even though she's new, she doesn't get much abuse from the rest of the flock. Pepper is pretty much the lowest on the pecking order. Last week, Salty pulled out a lot of Pepper's neck feathers at night. And the other day, I saw her pull a feather from Pepper for no reason. Pepper has now become fearful of the other hens and of me. I feed them 16% layer crumbles, and give BOSS for a morning treat. What can I do? I can't separate any of them, they have a large (50 x 100) area to free range in, they haven't been cooped up at all. Would blu-kote help?
Thanks for any suggestions.

 

[Miss Lydia]

I've read on here that sometimes feather picking could mean needing more protien. Bluekote might help but you could also try giving them more protien. Scrambled eggs, mealworms tuna fish in water, yogurt.

 

[Raven81]

i have a similar prob my 3 11 wk old dorking chicks are plucking the 10 wk old SLWs neck to the point that they have drawn blood over nite & now 'it' has a red raw throat. not sure of the sex of the SLW but have 2 pullets & a roo in the dorkings. but its the pullets doing it. how do i stop them as i have nowhere to seperate them. they have been living together happily since they hatched. other than this problem.
there was originally 4 dorkings & 2 SLW but lost 1 of each to cocci a few weeks ago.

 

[chicks4kids]

If you have a quarantine cat carrier or anything of that sort, you can put salty in there for a day or so and see if that doesn't tone her attitude down a little bit.

 

[savingdogs]

I had this going on for a long time, except I had two hens that were always getting pecked by one or two of my highest ranking hens. It went on for months! It started when they molted but those two barely had a chance to grow back their feathers.

Finally, it resolved itself when they went broody together and I put them in a little coop together and they raised their chicks. By the time they were ready to go back with the flock, they had grown back their feathers nicely and no one pecked them any more!

 

[Wyogirl]

I also had that problem , they actually almost killed one of my SLW. I sprayed all 40 birds with Blu Kote and also put Vicks Vapor rub all over them!! They would peck at each other and hated the taste of Vicks, We had clear sinuses and also the pecking stopped. this was about a month ago, if I see them pecking i get the old vicks out and they stop-

Good luck, I also ordered the peepers but havent had to use them yet.