Introducing a new hen to the flock - any suggestions?!

[PrecioustoHim]

Hello, I have the same situation did you ever get this resolved? If so how? I am getting desperate?
My new hens will not leave the perch. I have had to fix them feed and water dishes up near where they perch so they can eaat and drink. They will not go near the nesting boxes for fear of getting beat up, so they have not layed narry an egg yet.

Can you help?
Thanks

 

[Farmgirl Lily]

The problem sorted itself out in a way. I eased back on specially treating Roberta to food, hoping that she would get down on her own and eat. The problem was that the other girls left her alone until she started panicking and drawing their attention. Then they went after her. I started shutting the mean hens in the chicken house and leaving Roberta out with the "nice" girls for several hours a day, and once she grew confident with them, I started introducing the "mean" girls to her gradually (and under supervision!) In the last few weeks, Roberta has been with all of the other hens, and although she is at the bottom of the pecking order, she is living with all of them! Anyways, I just made sure to have places for her to get away, such as a tree stump to jump on in the pen, and several perches. Also, my hens are fascinated with water in other dishes and that takes their attention away from Roberta, so I try to distract them with other things to do. It has taken a lot of time, and eventually I couldn't devote so much time to Roberta and I pretty much left her to her own devices. If you have more than one new hen, however, that should be better because they can hang out together and feel safe in numbers.

I did hobble my mean hens for a few days using strips of fabric off an old cotton t-shirt, and that slowed them down a little bit, but obviously it would be challenging to go hobbling your whole flock!

Hope this helps somewhat. Be sure to keep asking questions!

 

[PrecioustoHim]

Thank you for the reply. I have 3 newbies, and 6 meanies. Well actually there are only 3 of the meanies that are really picking on the newbies but they are of course afraid of all 6 of them.

We still have quite a lot of snow on the ground and so it will be some time before i can get the door open to the outside enclosure. If i could get them outside things would for sure calm down between them.

Oh well. I guess they will have to live on the perches a while longer until the snow melts. Come on SPRING.

I found this picture online and so i thought I would share it...it seems so appropriate.