Please help, no idea why this is happening

[colandjulie]

Last night when closing the coop up I noticed one of the chickens was seperate from the others in a different area of the coop, not in the nest box.

Gone out this morning to find that when they have all come out the other birds are all attacking the one that was seperate.

We are very new to the whole chicken thing and have no idea if this is normal.
We have had the birds about 3 months and never noticed a problem before.

They are Pekin Bantams and were bought as a family unit, 1 Cock and 3 Hens.

We have seperated the one that is being attacked at the moment but don't know i this is the right thing to be doing.

ANy help/suggestions would be very welcome.

Cheers

Col and Julie

 

[Farmer Kitty]

She is most likely the low one in the pecking order. Either that or something is wrong with her but, more than likely the first. Separating her was the best thing to do. If left they will keep pecking at her and can kill her.

What kind of shape is she in? Any open wounds?

If the pecking occured on her back then once any major sores are healed you could try a chicken saddle. See my signiture line for a link. You definately need to get any sores to heal before putting her back.

 

[mmajw]

I agree with Kitty. Once open sores the others will just keep going at her. I just had to seperate mine as well. They just get bored or sometimes dont have enough space. Are they able to go outside or get away from eachother? Seperating is the best idea for awhile until moulting is done or until any open sores are healed and all blood is gone. Good Luck with her.

 

[BJ]

There are some links which mention using pine tar with great success. You might do a search. I had this problem and if I had known about the pine tar, I would have tried that as an option.

I personally cannot stand back and watch them pecking each other like a bunch of mean jr. high school girls! I know it is a natural thing, but sometimes it is enough to make me want to "quit chickens"!!

 

[colandjulie]

Thanks for your help!

We took the "down" one to the vets yesterday along with one of the other birds for comparison. Vet gave them a clean bill of health but provided some worming powder just in case.

Put them back in the run together yesterday and all was fine.

They were out of the coop this morning when I got up and were happily pecking away and grubbing about.

Put the cockerel out (he lives in a box in our cellar of a night as the naighbours really don't appreciate the 0420hs alarm call.) this morning and all of a sudden they are attacking the "down" one again.

It's not the cockerel doing it, just one of the other hens. The third hen seems to be present but not getting too involved.

I've seperated them again this now. There are no open sores or wounds and there is no blood on the poor girl but she definitely isn't happy.

Our run is a fair size wth plenty for them to do, I've piled wood and covered it with a load of bark chippings, and considering we only have 4 chickens in total the run is about 3 metres by 1.5 metres so I hope that is big enough!

Any further help\\ideas would be appreciated.

 

[dlhunicorn]

You might try separating the "instigator" hen at the same time as the wounded one... put the wounded one back (when recovered of course) first and then the "instigator" a day later...the pecking order whould be suitably disturbed to stop the instigator hen from choosing the downed one as the "scape goat"

 

[Farmer Kitty]

Good idea dlhunicorn, I had one that I had to separate for a while and when I put her back the others did not accept her. The didn't pick on her as long as she stayed on the outskirts of the flock. When I collected eggs for this hatch, I had put the girls into pens until they laid. Since then she is right in the middle of everything.