I had to remove one of my Spitz chickens from the flock. She is a lot smaller than the rest, and was getting bullied so much she hid all day and would not eat. She lost a lot of weight. Once she is fattened up, can I try to reintroduce her?
You can try but i assume she was at the bottom of the pecking order and she probably get pick/peck on again. If she was the same size hen i would say maybe taking the bully hen out and reintroducing her would work as well. But you could still try it just keep a close eye on her and maybe add a place she can hide the others cant get to that have food and water for her.
Introducing a single bird is the hardest introduction and tends to produce the most violent of reactions. Everyone knows that this bird is a stranger, everyone is desperate to keep this bird below them in the pecking order. All are firmly convinced that with the new bird there will not be enough feed to go around. If you bird was bullied before, unless she has grown a great deal and is very close in size to the other birds, she will more than likely be bullied again. Your best bet is to pull another bird out of the flock. Put this bird with the one you already have, let them get a pecking order worked out one on one. Then reintroduce the pair, at the same time pull your most dominant bird, or your top two. This will mix everything up, and might let the lower birds get a toe hold into the flock. Later add back the dominant pair, which will shake things up again. However, there is a very strong possibility that this bird will be targeted even with all these strategies, some birds just don't fit in a flock. Mrs K
Here is a wonderful informative article that documented the reintegration process of one hen. https://www.backyardchickens.com/a/reintegrating-a-recovered-hen-to-a-small-flock
Answered in this duplicate thread https://www.backyardchickens.com/t/1050284/dead-chicken-and-ganging-up
Hey Mutt, I was just thinking of @sunflour 's write up on her experience! Might be helpful to the OP to check it out.
