CascadeQUAIL
Songster
Oh man. Samwell. She is such a handful. We got her 2 weeks ago along with her "sister" she was hatched with (Wyandotte), they were in a large actual farm flock but get along very well. The wyandotte is fully integrated into our backyard flock and is doing just fine.
Then there's Sam. The other chickens (3 hens + the "new" hen) just want to do the pecking order dance with her. They run up and fluff up their necks but Sam doesn't even speak that language. She runs around beeping like a bobwhite quail and inevitably runs by one who gives her a small peck. Even if they don't make contact (I've seen some "attacks" very close up and they missed by about 3 inches) Sam will scream like the devil and run around in circles that much longer.
The other chickens are just bewildered. We have one that is sort of slow and when she finally musters the courage to do the neck fluff dance, Sam runs away and I swear the slow one looks dejected...what did I do wrong? That's how all the other chickens do it....
Joking aside how can we get Sam to get into the flock. We put her in the roost every night when the others are asleep and it's fine. Everytime they are in the run together Sam can't even keep it together and ends up just blindly smashing against the top or a wall until we let her out.
When they are out in the yard Sam is opposite sides and will try and do a run by only to get picked and scream and run even farther away. They coexist fine our yard is big enough, but can't be in the run together at all.
We've tried putting Sam in a smaller cage within the run and again hysterics until we cancelled it. It wasn't just a little scared behavior she was going to kill herself.
The other chickens aren't even picking on her they just want to establish the pecking order. Should we give Sam more time? Anything else we can try?
Then there's Sam. The other chickens (3 hens + the "new" hen) just want to do the pecking order dance with her. They run up and fluff up their necks but Sam doesn't even speak that language. She runs around beeping like a bobwhite quail and inevitably runs by one who gives her a small peck. Even if they don't make contact (I've seen some "attacks" very close up and they missed by about 3 inches) Sam will scream like the devil and run around in circles that much longer.
The other chickens are just bewildered. We have one that is sort of slow and when she finally musters the courage to do the neck fluff dance, Sam runs away and I swear the slow one looks dejected...what did I do wrong? That's how all the other chickens do it....
Joking aside how can we get Sam to get into the flock. We put her in the roost every night when the others are asleep and it's fine. Everytime they are in the run together Sam can't even keep it together and ends up just blindly smashing against the top or a wall until we let her out.
When they are out in the yard Sam is opposite sides and will try and do a run by only to get picked and scream and run even farther away. They coexist fine our yard is big enough, but can't be in the run together at all.
We've tried putting Sam in a smaller cage within the run and again hysterics until we cancelled it. It wasn't just a little scared behavior she was going to kill herself.
The other chickens aren't even picking on her they just want to establish the pecking order. Should we give Sam more time? Anything else we can try?