Meet Bitchgheera

[micstrachan]

Am I allowed to say that here? Her real name is Bagheera. She was pretty relentless with my little Rusty, who died last month. Picked on her all the time. Chased her away from food. She also plucks the feathers off Margo. Margo is coming out of a molt, and is getting wise to Bagheera’s ways, staying away from her. The balt spot from Bagheera’s plucking filled in along with all the other new feathers. But yestrday Bagheera started going after Margo again. WHILE FREE RANGING, when Margo was distracted by foraging, Bitchgheera, I mean, Bagheera, pulled twelve feathers out in one clump. Today I isolated her and the flock was peaceful. After a few hours, I felt sorry for her and let her out to free range with everyone (they get lots of free range time on weekends and only about an hour a day during the week. They get little direct sun during the week, so I like to make sure they get lots when they can.) Anyway, after I let her out, Bagheera went after Margo’s feathers again! As a Brown Leghorn, Margo is pretty high strung as it is. She does not need this stress. What’s a chicken lover to do? Here’s a photo of Bagheera “in the doghouse” today (mini coop I keep in the pen for isolation). Thinking we’ll keep her in there all week (but I’ll let her roost with everyone. Big coop is Fort Knox. This little coop and the pen, not so much.)

 

[chickencheeper]

I hate to say it but if your chickens are being tormented by her and she’s more trouble than she’s worth then maybe she deserves to be dinner, or you could sell her, it may be hard, we all love our chickens like family, but if one of them is tormenting and causing stress and injury then we want the best for the victims.

 

[micstrachan]

I hate to say it, but it has crossed my mind I might need to rehome her at some point. See how bad her tail feathers look? She still has not had a molt and is 20 months old. I was secretly hoping she’d have a hard molt, or any molt for that matter, and maybe get knocked down in the pecking order (so far, my molters have kind of kept to themselves. Not a lot of experience with this yet, since this is only mysecond year of having chickens.) I also may try isolating her completely out of view for a week. I’m not quite set up for that, but can figure something out.