Lonely Chicken

[greencow]

Hi!
My chickens are 5 months old. 3 of them are barred rocks, and the 4th is an ameraucana. The three barred rocks seem to leave Chester (the ameraucana hen) out, and the problem seems to be growing. Any advice?

 

[Araucana16]

Well... that seems to happen a lot. If you have one that is kinda just... different.. it gets left out. I didn't have this problem since mine all looked totally different. I think what happens is they make friends with the other chickens because they do (or maybe because they know that they are kinda like that) and then they start seeing only that look as the right look.

So I would get another one, preferably one that has about the same temperament as the Americauana (I'm guessing kinda timid) and looks about the same, or at least very different than the barred rocks.

If that's not possible, I would personally see if you could put up a border between the coop and put one barred rock and the americauna on one side, and the other two on the other. Obviously if you see any aggression, stop that, but the hope would be to make Chester and the BR friends, so that when the four are put back together, hopefully the four will be a group, and if the BRs don't want the separated one back in their group, the two of them have each other.

Sorry if this is awful advice, I'm just coming up with what I can.

 

[greencow]

Okay, thanks!