My chicken is being attacked

[jtowers]

I saw one of my chickens jump on another chickens back (her name is butterball) and peck at her head. And now a couple of days later i see the rest of the chickens be mean to her. Today I noticed that she is missing feathers on her head and she wont go up into the coop with the rest of the girls. What should I do????

 

[littlequail21]

Watch out, you may want to remove that chicken from the group or Put a smaller cage in the coop so you can lock her up at night, if they are picking on her, they can make some pretty Painful wounds for her. Pecking and pulling out feathers.

 

[jtowers]

thanks ill try that

 

[Momhen]

Do you have any idea why they are pecking at her? Is she ill in any way? When we got our initial 2 hens & rooster we noticed one had an eye infection. The other two seemed to peck at her and we figured it was because of the infection - they were trying to get rid of the possible threat to the health of the flock. by the time we started treating her eye infection, the other 2 had caught it slightly too so we had to treat all 3. now they are fine.

If you can put her in a smaller coop to isolate her - would it be beneficial to put another one with her? Would this help her be accepted back into the flock if she has a "buddy", even if she is lowest in the pecking order? Maybe others will know the answer. I've noticed that hens are quite social and like to be with other hens. We recently had an ill rooster (the alpha) and I isolated him with another hen. When we tried to separate her from him and put her back with the others, she couldn't be coaxed. We had to physically lift her away, and even then she didn't seem to happy. What do others think?