Introducing injured chicken to younger flock

[djwilke]

Our three and a half month old chicken was attacked by a raccoon last week and sustained some injuries on her left leg. We have been keeping her at the house to let her recover. She is alert, eating, and walking with a limp, but needs to rest frequently. When I brought her out to the flock to see how she would fare, a few of the others started pecking at her when she took a rest after twenty minutes of activity. A neighboring flock has a new batch of chicks about a month younger than ours, and I was wondering if she would have better luck being introduced to them instead. I feel bad keeping her isolated for much longer, but I worry about how our flock will treat her.

 

[Angie8eggs]

When you say house, do you mean in your house or the chicken house? If you mean your house, I would keep her in the chicken house in like a dog cage or something like that, so they can see her, and she can see them. Maybe during the day set her outside with them in the cage,(her just being in the cage) once she seems better, slowly set her out with them, keep an eye on her tho, and when she seems much better put her on the roost with them at night, that way they will all wake up happy with each other and forget about picking on her! Also, you can try putting a tiny bit of pine tar on her, that smell- they would want to peck on her! Hope this helps some! Keep me posted!