Recently one of my pullets (23 weeks) became very ill, since removing her from the coup as a safety measure it's looking highly unlikely she'll be able to go back in. At the time she became ill there were no signs of bullying whatsover, however, every attempt I've made over the past few days to reintroduce her has ended with her being chased and pecked! At the moment she has the entire garden to herself, and it's a big garden! This has seen her get much better and she's pretty much back to her old self. Currently she resides in an old rabbit run with a thick bed of straw for her bed. We cover the run on a night which is housed in our outhouse - so she's completely safe! Obviously this isn't ideal, but before we fork out for an expensive coup is there anything I can do to reintroduce her to the other girls?
I would put her in the coop but have her sectioned off from the others with some kind of wire fencing until they grow accustomed to her. Chickens don't remember for very long and they thought she was an outsider so they attacked her. If you put her where they can see her but keep her safe from being attacked you should be able to integrate her after a week or so. I have heard also that if you sneak her in at night when everybody is asleep when they wake up they'll think she is one of them but I have no experience with that.
