Pecking!!!!!

[Branderella]

Last week I noticed my EE was missing some feathers and was bleeding on her back ( about 2 in big ) it scabbed over, and she was fine. 2 days later they were back at it and pecked out her whole back (the size of my hand) to the bone. I had to kill her she could barely walk....So I have a GSL, RIR, SLW left, one of each...so this afternoon I came home and I noticed the GSL and RIR did the same to the SLW...we tried to kil her too ( it was also down to the bone) but she few away to my neighbors yard, now we cant find her. Why is my RIR and GSL doing this to the low girls on the totem poll...?my SLW and EE were the sweetest. Please help me prevent my last 2 from killing each other...

 

[mountainroost]

I don't have any advice, I am new to this, but I am having a similar problem and I'm trying to figure out pecking, molting, or self mutilation. Now your post has me worried. The funny thing is that my two that have feathers missing and a little blood in the same place you mentioned are two of the most dominant of my 10- I would hate to go through finding them that way and having to kill them. i'm sorry you had to

Hope someone has some advice.

 

[Kittymomma]

Lack of space or boredom if they are just pecking. If they are eating the feathers too it may be that they aren't getting enough protien. Try putting a bale of hay in their run for them to tear apart and peck thru. Lots of birds like cabbage and pumpkin so you could try hanging that in the run as well to relieve boredom. For protien you can grind up dry cat food to add to their feed or switch to a 22% gamebird feed. BOSS is also a good high protien treat that they will enjoy scratching around for if you toss it in the run.

You should also give your birds a good going over and make sure you don't have a mite or lice problem.

How much room *indoor/outdoor* do the chickens have? What are you feeding them? How old are they?

Hope this helps and you can get it under control. In sever cases sometimes you just have to cull the problem birds, hopefully you can make some management changes and solve this problem.

 

[Branderella]

They are around 8 months old....about 35sq ft...but i let them into the yard everyday for hours. I just feed them layer pellets and cracked corn..and a little oyster shell

 

[Kittymomma]

Quote:
Is that a 35sq' coop with no run or is that coop and run combined? 35sq is a little on the small side for four full size chickens. Some people don't have problems with that ratio but others do. I think a lot of it depends on the individual birds. The rule of thumb is 4sq' coop and 10sq' for the run space. It the weather where you live keeps them indoors often then you want to have more indoor room.

If they don't have a run and the yard time varies you might have a minor crowding and major boredom issue. Try the hay and hanging treats to keep them occupied and out of trouble.

The other thing is if you're feeding more then a handful or two of the cracked corn they probably aren't getting enough protien. Layer usually has around 16% and cc has between 6-8% protien. You can see how you could lower the protien intake pretty quickly if cc makes up much of their diet.

I'm feeding more cc these days because we've had some really cold (for us) weather and the corn helps the girls warm up, but I'm also feeding 22% gamebird to keep the protien levels where I think they should be.

I'm sorry this is so rambling. I'm mostly just trying to throw some stuff out there for you to consider. You know your birds best.

 

[jerseygirl1]

I'm going thru the same, one bird pecked the other to the point o fbloodshed. Mostly frm being in the coop during the day now that the free range time has all about draine dup except for weekends. They broke two windows trying to get out. I' let them out for an hour when I get home, in the dark with a light on them, and upped their protein with flock raiser, and tomorrow I am adding some cabbage to their coop. It seems that now the weather has chagned, there's a l ot more short-tempered hens around