I have a new chicken. I raised her as a baby with a rooster, while I had 4 adults. They were raised in a separate pen next to the others, and they shared the yard with them, but the two young ones mostly stayed away from the flock. I had to get rid of the rooster ( due to noise and ordinances) but I kept the hen. Now that she is alone, the flock is picking on her. She still has a separate coop next to the others, and I know they need to establish their pecking order, but they are ganging up on her and pecking at her feet. She has open sores. What can I do to help her socially....and how can I treat her wounds?
I used this on a few chickens we brought in that had a ton of missing feathers, but we bought a pick-no-more lotion that you would rub on the affected area to get the chickens to stop pecking it. It's got a bad smell and it does stain. You can buy it at any tractor/farmer supply store. It might be called something else depending on where you go but most stores have something like that for poultry. You could try putting some of that on her feet and see if that maybe helps with the relationship between the chickens until they stop pecking her. But if it is the pecking order, you may want to just let them do their thing and step in if something terribly goes wrong. With the 3, we had one new one that kept trying to get somewhere in the pecking order, until one of our buffs had her on the ground, and that basically ended the whole pecking order for them. It's strange that they are going for her feet though, I've never seen that with any of my chickens.
Let her heal up first, in the separate pen. Let her free range while keeping the other birds confined, every other day maybe. After she heals up, try putting one of the existing birds in with her in her pen until they form a bond. Try different existing birds in the newbies pen, one at time, until you see some evidence that they are getting along. You are giving the newbie an advantage by putting an existing bird in the newbies territory, and evening the odds to 1 on 1 instead of 3 on 1. You might have to do some chicken juggling for awhile until they get used to each other
