Pecking Problem Please Help!!!

[TurnerFlock]

We are new chicken owners. We got 5 chickens to start with at the beginning of July. 1 Buff Orpington, 1 Delaware, 1 Wyandotte, and 2 Polish. The have been in the outside coop and run since they were 8 weeks. Everyone got along fine. About 2 weeks ago, both Polish started getting the feathers on their heads pecked off by the Orp and the Delaware, the Wyandotte seems uninterested. Now they both are missing feathers off the top of their heads. We put the purple no-peck stuff on. It might help a little. We quarantined off a section of the run and put the 2 Polish in there and then everyone goes in the coop at night. Now we are putting the Orp and the Delaware in the quarantine area. This is not aggressive pecking from what we have seen. If a Polish head happens to be near one of the others beaks, it's going to get pecked. There appears to be no pecking going on once they are back in the coop at night. They have been very resourceful at getting out of the quarantine area so I am sealing it off better this weekend. I really need help solving this problem. I really don't want to build a second coop for the Polish. I built the first big enough for these and then some. Thanks in advance for any advice.

 

[Yorkshire Coop]

I'm sorry to hear you are having problems with your polish being pecked. I'm afraid to say that this may continue as long as you keep the polish with the others. Because polish have the fancy crests this attracts a lot of unwanted attention and pecking from other breeds. Polish in general don't do well in mixed flocks because of the crest and them having limited vision. You could continue with the anti peck and hope they stop but if they don't you may have to keep them separate. Prolonged pecking at the crest can result in bloody injuries which in turn can cause more pecking when they see the blood.

Good luck, I hope you are able to stop the pecking and if not that you can sort something for the polish to live seperate.