KirbyH
Songster
The problem began with one chicken being beaten up on and injured by another. I removed that chicken until she healed and then determined who was picking on her. It looked like standard pecking order wars so I then removed the offending chicken. What happened when I did this is a whole slew of problems went away. We had one hen, an Americauna, who wouldn't go near the flock when it was out in the big yard, the bird was skittish and ran from us too. It also was laying eggs so thin shelled we could barely hold them without breaking them. We had recurring episodes of broken eggs, not eaten mind you, just broken. We weren't getting many eggs. Since the removal of the mean bird the Americauna is friendlier and sticks with the flock, the eggs have solid shells, there are no broken eggs. The group is visibly peaceful. So it is my conclusion this hen was terrorizing all of the birds. She does not seem to be laying herself (she's older) and I don't know if that has something to do with her meanness. I am going to try pinless peepers on her but if that doesn't work, we will probably cull her. Interestingly she doesn't pay attention to the silkies where she is housed now. Has anybody had this experience?
