Pecking new Amber Link until she bleeds

[coulter5]

I took 6 Amber Links from someone who had a lot of bantam chickens.
They were picking on the bantams.

I noticed today that one of the Amber Links were pecking another between her wings on her back.
After watching for a few minutes, I noticed that she didn't have any feathers there and she was bleeding.

We took her out of the coop and put her in a dog crate in the basement.
We put a roost and a make shift nest along with her food/water.

We washed the wound and we are thinking of putting bacitracin on it so it doesn't get infected.

How long should we keep her separated?
How long will it take to have her feathers grow back?
It didn't look like the other hen was picking on her.
I have had chickens for 3 years and I have seen what happens when I introduce new chickens
and they re-establish the pecking order. This was not like that. It was almost like she was eating a bug off of her or something.

Never had anything like this happen before.
We looked at the hens and didn't notice any bugs.

-Mike

 

[sourland]

Keep watching the chickens it may be that one or more are chronic pickers/feather eaters. Adding protein to their diet in the form of dry cat food may help. It is very likely that the pickers will need pinless peepers (little nose guards) to stop them from picking. It is a bad habit that can be very difficult to correct.

 

[Hottchick]

I put blu kote on my baby that got pecked by and older chicken also. It helps disinfect the wound and supposedly will help with the pecking.