Isolating a bully - **Progress Update**

[Tomhusker]

I have 4 Lavender Orpingtons, about 7 weeks old or so. The chicks are all healthy, but are of varying sizes. One is much larger than the rest, two are in the middle, then the other is undersized. They were moved out to the coop this last week end and have been doing well despite the heat. I keep them separate from my 14 week old BR's by some chicken wire.
I am seeing that the smallest one is showing what I think are some signs of major feather pecking. Her neck is all but naked and her breast has bald spots. The two middle sized ones are feathering out, but the feathers are looking cut and ragged. One also has a bald spot on her neck. The largest is feathering out well and looks very nice, with no sign of problems.
I assume this means she is the one doing the pecking. I have never seen any of the pecking, but I don't know what else it could be.
I have a 3'x1.5' tractor that I can put in the coop and isolate her if that is what needs to be done. If so, how long will this need to be done?

Any help with this issue will be much appreciated.

 

[Leia's Chickens]

We put our chickens in jail if they pick the other chickens. They go to jail for a week and if that doesn't work then they go to jail for another week.

 

[Tomhusker]

I guess I should have asked also; Will the feathers grow back?

 

[OrloffTom]

I'm no expert but the feathers should come back. It will just take some time. From reading, when they molt they lose feathers and get new ones so I assume they would come back.

 

[Tomhusker]

I know this thread has been buried for a little while but I wanted to update it with what we ended up with.

After 6 days of "Isolation" as I described earlier, we placed the bully back in with her brooder mates last Friday. My wife and I left for vacation on that day also. When we returned, the first thing I did (after putting our 5 new Jersey Giant chicks in the new brooder) was check up on the chicks. The little one mentioned above was looking totally different, BETTER!! HIS feathers were coming in well he was actually showing dominating behaviors over the bigger one. And the other two also seemed to be completely recovered from the bullying. The big girl was acting completely "whooped" and was no longer at the top of the pecking order.
We are now working on getting them all accepted into the original flock of BR's, which are about 6 weeks older. There is a bit of size difference, but the lavenders have the end of the coop with the nesting boxes, and I may need those here in a few weeks.