Melbourne Chickens
In the Brooder
- Oct 13, 2018
- 6
- 5
- 19
Hi there,
Apologies for the long post but I've had some terrible luck lately. For the last 2.5 years I've had three very big, very happy chickens. Barnevelders and Wyandottes. I live in the inner city and have our chickens in the yard. We have their coop, then a moderate run area and a larger garden space for them to roam in.
About 2 months ago I lost 2 of those chickens. The mother hen and then the second in command. The first chicken died when a dog broke its leash and jumped our gate (which I have now raised) and the second died in a freak way. She caught its head in a bit of fencing in the garden and must have struggled and broke her neck.
We got 3 new chickens during this time. First we got 2 chickens and then 3 weeks later we got another baby chicken. We were told this would be okay and that would get used to each other.
The 3 newer chickens all did get used to each other. A week or so of light pecks and then they were all happy together.
Our biggest issue has been our older chicken. We knew she would become the head of the pecking order but she's been really difficult to manage. Not letting the little chickens into the coop at night, chasing them around when there's food. It's been over 5 weeks and she still does it. More aggressively than we've experienced with other chickens in the past, no blood but definitely some brutal bullying.
And last night my housemates and I made a terrible mistake. We miscommunicated and thought each other were going to close the gate before we went out for dinner. Two of our young chickens (15-24 weeks) must have been sleeping on the roof of the coop because a fox got to them. This is the first time we've had an issue with a fox and we are absolutely devastated.
The chickens that were in the coop were okay, but the rest are gone. We found one of them in the park down the road, head removed. We have absolutely no sign of the baby chicken though! No blood or anything. I've searched and searched but I have to assume she is dead too.
My question is, what should I do now? Obviously I need to be more careful in the future and be more vigilant in the future. But I still love having chickens and I still feel that even a few months with us is better than a lifetime in a warehouse so I want to get more chickens.
I don't really understand how to deal with this older grumpy chicken. She's almost 3 years old, a Wyandotte and I feel like she won't ever deal with other chickens. The other remaining chicken is younger and more friendly, hasn't even started laying yet, so I feel like if we got more chickens she would be okay?
Is there a solution here that doesn't involve killing our Wyandotte? We're in Australia and we're getting into summer, so I don't want to lock the chickens in the coop for days to get them all used to each other, I'm also not sure how their water/food would last in there as they would just knock it all over when they fight.
My instincts tell me I should put the older chicken down and then get 3 more chickens around 15-16 weeks old. That way I'm hoping that our single chicken would be okay because it's still older than the others?
Any advice would be great. I have really hated these last few months dealing with these young chickens and worrying about how they'd cope with the older chicken.
I'm going away in 2 weeks, for 3 weeks and I'm bringing my chickens and their coop with me. I did this last year and it was a lot of fun, basically just going to my folks place over Christmas and the chickens liked having a different place to explore (my little cousins loved it too!). I'm not too sure how the new chickens would cope but I'd really like to sort this out asap so they have a few weeks to get used to their coop and etc.
I realise none of this is ideal at all!
Apologies for the long post but I've had some terrible luck lately. For the last 2.5 years I've had three very big, very happy chickens. Barnevelders and Wyandottes. I live in the inner city and have our chickens in the yard. We have their coop, then a moderate run area and a larger garden space for them to roam in.
About 2 months ago I lost 2 of those chickens. The mother hen and then the second in command. The first chicken died when a dog broke its leash and jumped our gate (which I have now raised) and the second died in a freak way. She caught its head in a bit of fencing in the garden and must have struggled and broke her neck.
We got 3 new chickens during this time. First we got 2 chickens and then 3 weeks later we got another baby chicken. We were told this would be okay and that would get used to each other.
The 3 newer chickens all did get used to each other. A week or so of light pecks and then they were all happy together.
Our biggest issue has been our older chicken. We knew she would become the head of the pecking order but she's been really difficult to manage. Not letting the little chickens into the coop at night, chasing them around when there's food. It's been over 5 weeks and she still does it. More aggressively than we've experienced with other chickens in the past, no blood but definitely some brutal bullying.
And last night my housemates and I made a terrible mistake. We miscommunicated and thought each other were going to close the gate before we went out for dinner. Two of our young chickens (15-24 weeks) must have been sleeping on the roof of the coop because a fox got to them. This is the first time we've had an issue with a fox and we are absolutely devastated.
The chickens that were in the coop were okay, but the rest are gone. We found one of them in the park down the road, head removed. We have absolutely no sign of the baby chicken though! No blood or anything. I've searched and searched but I have to assume she is dead too.
My question is, what should I do now? Obviously I need to be more careful in the future and be more vigilant in the future. But I still love having chickens and I still feel that even a few months with us is better than a lifetime in a warehouse so I want to get more chickens.
I don't really understand how to deal with this older grumpy chicken. She's almost 3 years old, a Wyandotte and I feel like she won't ever deal with other chickens. The other remaining chicken is younger and more friendly, hasn't even started laying yet, so I feel like if we got more chickens she would be okay?
Is there a solution here that doesn't involve killing our Wyandotte? We're in Australia and we're getting into summer, so I don't want to lock the chickens in the coop for days to get them all used to each other, I'm also not sure how their water/food would last in there as they would just knock it all over when they fight.
My instincts tell me I should put the older chicken down and then get 3 more chickens around 15-16 weeks old. That way I'm hoping that our single chicken would be okay because it's still older than the others?
Any advice would be great. I have really hated these last few months dealing with these young chickens and worrying about how they'd cope with the older chicken.
I'm going away in 2 weeks, for 3 weeks and I'm bringing my chickens and their coop with me. I did this last year and it was a lot of fun, basically just going to my folks place over Christmas and the chickens liked having a different place to explore (my little cousins loved it too!). I'm not too sure how the new chickens would cope but I'd really like to sort this out asap so they have a few weeks to get used to their coop and etc.
I realise none of this is ideal at all!