Hi, new to the site, Chris2015 is my name. I have looked on this site many times for advice...but why I never joined??? I have 3 girls left...started with 6. My fist girl died due to egg prolapse, then another died from ? in the fall. My favorite girl died a few days ago, She was bullied from day 1 and despite moving her and care, she succumbed one day. Now I have one girl with a pathetic tail who is the one being "hen pecked"...sigh. I know who the bully is-do I get rid of the bully as I want to get chicks come spring....
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- Thread starter Chris2015
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Welcome to BYC!
Sorry for the loss of some of your chickens. If I did the math right (always questionable), you have 3 birds left, right? If you know for sure who the bully is, you can try removing her from the group for a couple days and then when you put her back in with the others, she may not be so aggressive as she will be knocked down a peg or two. If she continues to bully your other birds, you can try to re-home her or just cull her.
Hope things go better for you once things calm down.
Sorry for the loss of some of your chickens. If I did the math right (always questionable), you have 3 birds left, right? If you know for sure who the bully is, you can try removing her from the group for a couple days and then when you put her back in with the others, she may not be so aggressive as she will be knocked down a peg or two. If she continues to bully your other birds, you can try to re-home her or just cull her.
Hope things go better for you once things calm down.
Hello there and welcome to BYC!
Sorry for your losses. It is never easy to lose them.
As for bullying, make sure you are giving them enough room Birds that are cramped in pick on each other. So at least 5 square feet per bird in the coop and 10 square feet per bird in the run. If you have a troublesome bird you can try caging them for days on end and sometimes you need complete isolation for this to work. You can use pinless peepers on the aggressor. This helps to stop aggression. And spray the areas of the bird being picked on with some blu-kote. This will not only help to prevent infection but will hide the skin and any other wounds so the others won't pick on the bird in that area.
When you do mix in any new birds, chicks need to be at least 3 months old or more before mixing and when mixing in any birds you need to keep the new birds in a cage or enclosure within the run and coop for 3 to 4 weeks. You can't just throw them in with the flock. So, everybody sees, nobody touches. After 3 or 4 weeks, you can mix everybody together. Watch for aggression for that first week and always intervene if it turns bloody. Put out more food and watering stations too as the original flock can starve them out of food and water.
Good luck with your flock and I hope things settle down for you!
Sorry for your losses. It is never easy to lose them.
As for bullying, make sure you are giving them enough room Birds that are cramped in pick on each other. So at least 5 square feet per bird in the coop and 10 square feet per bird in the run. If you have a troublesome bird you can try caging them for days on end and sometimes you need complete isolation for this to work. You can use pinless peepers on the aggressor. This helps to stop aggression. And spray the areas of the bird being picked on with some blu-kote. This will not only help to prevent infection but will hide the skin and any other wounds so the others won't pick on the bird in that area.
When you do mix in any new birds, chicks need to be at least 3 months old or more before mixing and when mixing in any birds you need to keep the new birds in a cage or enclosure within the run and coop for 3 to 4 weeks. You can't just throw them in with the flock. So, everybody sees, nobody touches. After 3 or 4 weeks, you can mix everybody together. Watch for aggression for that first week and always intervene if it turns bloody. Put out more food and watering stations too as the original flock can starve them out of food and water.
Good luck with your flock and I hope things settle down for you!
- Thread starter
- #4
We have a brand new coop-can hold 12 chickens has 6 nesting boxes, and a covered run 6'x12' for them....I would hope that would be enough...would LOVE to let them free range, but our dog might not like that, and the hawk might like it too much! I have used the blue kote as well as the peck no more (found that stuff to be useless) I had been isolating the bullied chicken, not the bully, thank you for that info-will try that! And thank you also for the sympathy-it hurt so bad to loose my babies! I had raised them from wee lil peeps...loved to hold them and hand feed them, the last one that died was my special baby...she was a love
- Thread starter
- #5
Yes, your math is 100%
-no sarcasm, I promise. Thank you for your helpful response! I think I will try isolating my bully bird...its strange too as one of the birds that died was the bully bird-called her General she was so mean to the other girls! She peck and snip at them right in front of me-and I would scold her and shoo her away-then for the summer our old small coop needed repairs, so we had girls separated and they all did well, it wasn't until we got the huge coop that problems started...no I take that back. Two died before we got the coop....one had egg prolapse and the other ?.
Are your girls getting layer feed and a side dish of oystershell in case they want more calcium? Are you bullies of the same breed? Some breeds are more aggressive than others.
Maybe if you posted photos of your new coop we could offer suggestions that might help their behaviors. Do they have roosts far enough from the wall, so they can turn around easily?
Maybe if you posted photos of your new coop we could offer suggestions that might help their behaviors. Do they have roosts far enough from the wall, so they can turn around easily?
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