Polish have tophat feathers picked

[jfishfam]

We have 4 polish and after the first few months the other chickens have pecked out all of their tophat feathers. One is finally starting to get them back. On occasion it gets bloody, but mostly they are pretty much bald. My thinking is that if we separate them and then reintroduce them the problem might be worse. Any thoughts?

 

[sourland]

Sadly enough Polish maintained in mixed flocks frequently have their head feathers removed. If free ranged and /or given a lot of space this may not happen. If you remove them and then return them the process will be repeated plus there will be pecking order complications. The best solution is a seperate pen or new home for the Polish.

 

[jfishfam]

Thanks, That's kind of what I thought. They don't seem unhappy or unhealthy. They aren't free range, which I thought would solve some of the problem. We'll see, maybe sometime we'll be able to separate them. We will be starting a new coop and run area this week, not sure if we could create an area for them. It'll be a pretty big area. We have orpingtons coming this week.