Lost one to predator, hens now hurting each other?

[dgivens]

I don't really have a way that I can isolate her where they can all see each other. I'd like to see how they do tonight before I isolate anybody. Too risky?

 

[iwiw60]

Possibly, but you have to do what you have to do. Do you have a dog crate? I don't know how your coop is set up (no pics) so I can't really advise. Could you possibly post some interior pics and we can see what we can come up with to help you.

 

[chickengeorgeto]

We have had six araucana hens for the last year and a half and have done pretty well with them. Sadly, we lost our first two nights ago to what we think was a weasel. When I went to get the girls out this morning I see that three of them are injured. Pretty significant wounds on the head for two of them and the third looks pretty rough all over, having lost a lot of feathers. After observing them for a while, I'm wondering if these wounds came from each other. Our hen that was killed the other night was clearly one of, if not the, leader of their group. Is this normal? Are they reestablishing some kind of pecking order or is something else going on? Also is the wound in my attached pictures serious enough that it needs to be taken care of more than cleaning and some antibiotic ointment? We are very concerned and any advice would be much appreciated.

Any time the alpha hen or rooster is lost the other birds will try to fill the vacant position and in the old timey saying, "Try to rule the roost"

Removing the offending bird or birds may help or it may backfire because you may remove the new Alpha bird in which case you will condemn your flock to unnecessarily go through the whole King of the Mountain thing.