Pecking!

[rcita11]

Help! I have 5 RIR's 1 Amerucana and a salmon favorelle. The salmon Favorelle was pecked badly and wounded on her head and in chicken hospital. I tried pick no more first, they went for her 10 minutes later and pecked at the wound again. I applied blue kote and separated her. The RIR's went for th Amerucana so I doused her with the pick no more. This worked for a couple days and then today had to douse her again. The RIR's are two months older. I put a mirror in the run, hung treats, put extra straw for pecking grit and treats and oyster shell. They get regular veggies and whatnot from the kitchen. They live in a mansion of a run and coop so they have more than enough space. I feed them Layena crumble. These spoiled brats! Protein? Cannibalism? They all still lay the best. Any thoughts?

 

[Beekissed]

How much space do they have?

 

[rcita11]

12''12 run 10'10 coop. Multiple roosts and 4 nesting boxes.

 

[Beekissed]

Sounds like plenty of room to me for 6 birds. Some folks use Pinless Peepers for aggressive bird situations and say they work well. Maybe you could try some deep litter in the coop and run so they could stay more occupied, maybe different levels of living with stumps, roosts and even grow frames with forage in them to occupy their idle hours. Maybe they need more of a habitat than a mansion?

I've never had aggressive bird situations as my birds free range all the time, so I'm thinking that space and the occupation with foraging may keep them more satisfied and less prone to aggressiveness. I also keep a rooster and that tends to keep everyone settled into certain roles found in a healthy social structure within a flock.

 

[rcita11]

Shoulda kept that rooster. Happy New Year and thanks for the advise.

 

[rcita11]

Any other advise? Anyone?

 

[SwedishDude99]

I have had the same problem with my hens. We have 3 in an 8' by 10' coop with an 8' by 11' run. I couldn't figure out the problem since they all lay eggs regularly and they have plenty of room. Turns out, they were bored. I bought them a flock block, which is basically a giant block of different seeds. I also hung a lettuce and a cabbage in their run and raised it high enough so hat they had to jump to get it. I occasionally let them out to free range and now they are completely fine and don't show signs of pecking. Try removing the RIR's from the coop instead and leave the other two in there. That way, the pecking order will be disrupted. Try that for now and leave them seperated for one to two weeks. I forgot to mention that I also seperated the offenders twice and it stops it for a while and gives you time to figure out a solution to stop the problem permanently. Hope this helps and