Pecked 12 Week Buff Orpington

[dermerchickens]

Hi, I have a 12 week BO hen, and she has been pecked by the 12 week old rooster, because he trys to mate her, and she has no comb big enough to hold onto sooo... the head is his choice. She has quite a big sore (smaller then a penny, but big for a runt like her) right above her eye, little sores all down her head and neck, by her comb, nose, mouth and ears. It's hard to take pictures, because you can only really see them if you look through her feathers, but I will try. She is the only one like this, I am guessing she is an easy mate because she is the runt?? Anyways, I had a big dog cage I keep my 7 week old chicks in for a coop, and I put her in with them 4, since they are nice, and she is barely bigger then them. With a little wire cage as a run.

She used to be fine with me touching her head or picking her up, but everytime I do now, she squaks like my hand is the rooster, and when I stroke her head she jerks away and squaks. I am guessing it hurts her, ever since I found out about the sores yesterday. But when I let her out of the coop this morning, and I saw something that looked like a pretty big sore, so I picked her up, and sure enough it was, so I put her with the little chicks like I said. and BTW, they have been free-ranging and sharing a coop with the little chicks since about 4 weeks, but I switched the little chicks over last night, for certain reasons of my own.

 

[dermerchickens]

Here is a couple pictures, i have some more, but the email is being REALLY slow today for some reason.

Here that black above her ear is the sore, it is bigger, but she would not let me look at it close-up

This is Buddy, and Hedwig. Now you can see how big he is, and yes, he was going to mate her until he saw me.

Here is a picture of one of Bitsy's eyes, you can kinda see the little sores here and there. I feel so sorry for her!!

Here is the same eye as above, you can see the sores a bit better.

That black is the big sore above her left ear, poor girl, didn't like me holding her head still.

Here is another picture of that ear


and I have a few more pictures that have not came in yet.


Please help!

 

[dermerchickens]

Anyone?

 

[Sarevan]

I have my BO girls seperated from our adult Roo, he is with the 1yr old hens in another run. He is also 1yr old and still getting his breeding technique down. Some of the hens have spots like yours on the backs of their heads, necks, and breeding feather loss on their backs.

Your Roo is trying to learn how to grab and mount and she may be his favorite target pullet. As they are both 12 weeks old both are learning and not being very good on how to respond. She is too young still to even be squatting to submit to the roo, her comb and wattles will become red when she is close to point of lay and will start squatting to be bred when she is more mature.

You can try to seperate him from the pullets for a couple of months until more mature, within sight but no contact. When they are put together, be prepared for breeding feathers loss, sores around back of head, comb, feathers gone from back from his treading the back to try to get a grip.

One of my mature hens a favorite, has feather loss on the back of head to being nearly bald. 2 others have feather loss on their backs. They are now wearing saddles to allow the feathers to grow back. I have one Roo and 10 mature hens he does have favorite girls. The 9 BO pullets 4 months old will be added to his harem when they start squatting. When this happens he should be able to spread his attentions around a bit more.

Good luck, hope you can seperate him until your girls mature a bit more.

 

[dermerchickens]

Okay, I can separate him, but is there anything I can do for Bitsy?

She is his target because she is smaller and not as fast as the others. Poor girl.

 

[SparklingSiegel]

I would be concerned that at 12 weeks he is mating so aggressively, and girls that aren't squatting for him at that.
You can dab iodine on her sores, that will help her heal up.
I second the separation suggestion.
If you aren't planning on breeding specifically but still want a rooster you might consider a different (and smaller) breed that will protect your girls but not be a stressor for them.