Poor hens

[Sheepchickens]

Our hens are getting pecked so bad and almost all are missing a bunch of feathers. We have one large rooster (barred rock) and then a couple of small ones (forget the breed), our hens are mostly plymouth rocks. They have a run and I am hoping they will be able to be free range someday. So I'm wondering what I can do to make them quit getting pecked so bad? We do put stuff on the smaller pecked areas, but its such a large area it's hard to do much without practically dipping them in it. I don't know much about chickens, so I'm sorry if this is stupid, I just can't stand it anymore!

 

[ChickensAreSweet]

You can put the roosters by themselves in a rooster pen and give the girls a break. They will love it.

 

[bobbi-j]

Sounds like you have too many roosters. How many hens do you have? I agree with the above poster that you should separate the roosters from the hens.

 

[Phage]

How many hens do you have, and are they pecking each other or is it just the roosters ?
Do they have plenty of room?

Just saw your sig line says you have 30+ chickens how big is the coop and run.

 

[donrae]

I agree, sounds like you have too many roosters, and probably not enough space for all the birds. 30 hens should have around 300 square feet of space in a run, and only around 3 roosters. Too many roosters lead to hens getting over mated and bald on their backs and heads. Even if you have only hens, if they're too crowded they express their displeasure by pecking each other, pretty much all over.

 

[Sheepchickens]

Okay

that's the coop when we got it so it didn't have the run yet. I'm guessing we have about 25 hens and probably 10 of all our chickens are bantams (I'm not good with chicken breeds). I will probably try to do a temporary fix until spring/summer when we can put them in a pasture. We can't now because my donkey had strangles and can't go with the horses anyway because the fence isn't good enough to keep him in (we had to put up brand new fence for him). So anyway thanks for all your guys help!