- Oct 13, 2014
- 4
- 0
- 7
HI! Finally not lurking and needing a little help.
I have 7 Chicken right now. I purchase my first three 10 month old laying hens from a local farm in May - a Red Production, Speckled Hen, and a Polish. The Polish is our absolute favorite. She is so mild, loving, wants to held and pet, and unlike her breed lays about 6 eggs per week!
Shortly after, we hatched 4 Lavender Amercauna chicks in an incubator. They are now 14 weeks old. We still do not know if we have hens or roosters. I sent pics to the farm that sent us the eggs and was told that this breed usually becomes more evident around 16 weeks, so not far to go. I have my guess that two may be roosters though. Everything has been going great.....
Until recently. I noticed my Polish has not been laying eggs for the past 5 days. Very strange for her, but I deducted that with the weather changing, maybe it was normal.
Yesterday, I woke up in the morning to feed them and notice a feather frenzy in bottom of coop, mostly from my prized Polish and the others from one or more of the Lavenders. The entire section of tail feathers has been ripped right off her, and several areas of her wings and backside look attacked. None of the Lavenders look that tussled, so he/she obviously won the fight.
I separated out my Polish into another coop that we had been preparing to put all the birds in for winter. She is unusually skid dish now, runs away from us, and seems to be just roosting in the coop. I opened the door to let her roam the yard, but she won't come out. She's eating and drinking.... but I am so worried about her.
What do I do???? Thank you for your help!
I have 7 Chicken right now. I purchase my first three 10 month old laying hens from a local farm in May - a Red Production, Speckled Hen, and a Polish. The Polish is our absolute favorite. She is so mild, loving, wants to held and pet, and unlike her breed lays about 6 eggs per week!
Shortly after, we hatched 4 Lavender Amercauna chicks in an incubator. They are now 14 weeks old. We still do not know if we have hens or roosters. I sent pics to the farm that sent us the eggs and was told that this breed usually becomes more evident around 16 weeks, so not far to go. I have my guess that two may be roosters though. Everything has been going great.....
Until recently. I noticed my Polish has not been laying eggs for the past 5 days. Very strange for her, but I deducted that with the weather changing, maybe it was normal.
Yesterday, I woke up in the morning to feed them and notice a feather frenzy in bottom of coop, mostly from my prized Polish and the others from one or more of the Lavenders. The entire section of tail feathers has been ripped right off her, and several areas of her wings and backside look attacked. None of the Lavenders look that tussled, so he/she obviously won the fight.
I separated out my Polish into another coop that we had been preparing to put all the birds in for winter. She is unusually skid dish now, runs away from us, and seems to be just roosting in the coop. I opened the door to let her roam the yard, but she won't come out. She's eating and drinking.... but I am so worried about her.
What do I do???? Thank you for your help!
and Welcome To BYC! Sorry about your poor Polish getting beat up. X4, unfortunately they often do get picked on in mixed flocks and need to be kept separate.
