Someone is snacking on my chicks' tail feathers:(

[newlychicked]

Hello BYC! I am a newbie to chicks having hatched my first eggs just over two weeks ago. All was going well, 15 chicks were growing quickly and I expanded the size of their brooder twice; it is now 2.5'x6.5' and a toasty 85 degrees. They are inside my house.

Here's my problem - I just discovered two of my chicks have bloody tails - apparently someone has turned them into snacks. One chick has had all his tail feathers removed and has some other miscellaneous bloody places on him. The other has managed to hang on to a few of her tail feathers - - no blood anywhere else. The others all look okay. So far, the only suspect is my tiny little runt who is always pecking at the others - it's just hard to imagine s/he doing this much damage to chicks more than twice his/her size.

Does anyone have any idea what is going on and what I should do about it. The two injured chicks have been moved to a separate ChiCU and seem okay.

Thanks for any info/wisdom you can share.

 

[ChickyBoy417]

Well that also happened to two of my chicks but not with the blood. They were the two smallest chicks of the bunch and the smallest one got it the worst. He lost a lot of his tail feathers and he always was cold and was stepped over by the other chicks. Unfortunatley, the smallest one died. The other one grew to match the other chicks size and is doing fine. If i had isolated him until he grew up, he would have made it. It was smart of you to isolate him. But dont keep them isolated too long or else the next time you put the chickens together, they will fight. Isolate them until they recover and get bigger.