Mutilation behaviors

[hmbrown05]

I have one hen that keeps getting pecked on by the other birds in the flock. I have separated her for her to heal and then reintroduced her to the rest of the flock 48 hours ago after dark. They were fine yesterday, but between this morning and egg gathering time a few hours ago she has a quarter sized hole on the back of her head again :/

I don't know if it helps, but this all started after moving the birds to a new house a few months ago.

I can't continue to separate her indefinitely because I will be getting in a new batch of chicks and they will need the room. I am kind of at a loss of what else to do other than leave her out to fend for herself or eat her...

 

[GitaBooks]

I'm sorry to hear about that.

I hope this helps: http://www.the-chicken-chick.com/2013/03/chicken-feather-loss-cannibalism-causes.html

Best of luck!

 

[donrae]

How many birds and how much space?

You might consider getting her healed up and selling her.

 

[aart]

Ditto on the how many birds and how much space.

The moving might be a factor, chickens don't like change.
Did you move to a new house, or did the chickens get a new house?

Sometimes one chicken seems to draw aggression from some or all of the rest of the flock.
There's theory that it can be because the bird is sick or weak in some way and the flock wants to get rid a weak bird because they draw predators.
I have one hen now that the cock seems to hate, he's always chasing her off or getting her to submit then he just pecks her head.
There's enough space that she can get away most the time and she hangs out with the young pullet group who are also hiding out,
but she has few feathers left on the back of her head.
She seems healthy, is still laying at 3yo,

 

[hmbrown05]

Their coop is probably about 25'x25' for 21 birds. It's huge and they typically free range during the day or at least after 3pm depending on if someone decides to start hiding eggs. When I moved them I kept them cooped up for 2 weeks and that is when it started. Once I removed that particular hen, it stopped and I was able to turn them out with them coming "home" consistently after another week. The hen has been hanging out with two bantam birds and 6 pullets after they were "weaned" from the hen while they grew some more and is definitely the alpha bird in the group. I moved the whole group down to the "big" house so that I could clean the juvenille coop for the new babies. They are all fine with the babies who are approximately 3-4 weeks from maturity, but not this hen. Tey won't let her off the roost to eat/drink without attacking her. She is apparently healthy and lays well which is the real delima. If she were poor or a bad layer I would just cull her and be done with it.

Thanks for the link-I will definitely check it out!