Pecking Order- Flock attacked one girl

[oldhenlikesdogs]

Nice. I would enjoy watching them travel through them.

 

[kerusnak]

So I think the one poor girl (we've decided to name her Loser) has not really been able to eat or drink the past two days. Everytime I go down there she is hiding on a roost. When I throw scratch down she tries to eat some then Meanest comes up to attack her and she is back on the roost. The food is spread out, I throw scratch all over so there is space. I was thinking I should try putting Meanest in the time out pen. How long would I need to put her in timeout to make a difference?

 

[oldhenlikesdogs]

To change the pecking order I would remove her totally for at least three days, 5-7 would be better.

I personally would send the others out into the tunnels than take that time to block them out and tend to Loser. Take her off the roosts and feed her. I have had hiding chickens, they all eventually come out. My bottom birds will either get up on the top of a pen where I feed them, or they also learned to sit inside a plastic water trough used to feed hay, I have fed them in there too. So maybe adding some things to sit in or platforms to sit on will give Loser some confidence.

There's always a bottom bird who gets all the attacks, so you can't fix that, you just try to make their lives easier. They can't feed or roost near the top bird, it's just the way of the chicken.

 

[kerusnak]

I let Loser have the coop to herself for an hour yesterday. She was so happy to eat and drink and scratch. I added some extra roosting space and tried to attach some food and water she could access from the roosts since everytime she gets down she gets attacked until returning to roost. I added more treat bottles as well. When I let the girls back in with her everyone went for her so I wasn't 100% sure who to separate. A few of them look very similar so I just left them all. I moved loser near the food and water so she would know it was there and she was pretty scared at first but eventually ate some. Blackie jumped up after she noticed Loser was eating but she didn't seem interested in hurting her although Loser stepped away from her. This morning I gave them watermelon and poor Loser could help herself and tried to steal a few bites with consequences. I'm going to try to identify the main attacker and separate her for a while.


Weird looking egg found today


A lower roost


Chair with food


My food and water rig for Loser






She ate!


Blackie took over


She looks just exhausted. We feel really bad for her.

 

[oldhenlikesdogs]

Nice additions, that should help a lot. I have occasionally had one singled out like that, they are usually acting frightened for whatever reason which seems to bring on the attacks, the more confidence you can build in her the quicker the attacks might stop. Just being able to get away will help.

That's part of the reason why I get so many different breeds, I can't tell the difference from many of the same breed, so I try to limit them to help me keep track of who's who.

The eggs looks like someone took a long pause while the egg was half out before pushing it the rest of the way out. Probably was working on it for a while. Those sex links lay large eggs for their body size.