The Pickers and the Pecked

[MLGarber]

I found one of my chicks (bw 2-3 weeks old) today being pecked at by her 6 companions. I am guessing space is this issue, and as the weather improves this week, the girls will be moving to the coop. They have been in their run the past few days but we bring them back to brooder at night and today (because its raining).
I read that boredom and lack of space are likely to be the causes of the picking. I took the pecked girl out of the brooder as soon as I noticed the behavior.

She's in a box all by herself and has been for a few hours. The wounds I left alone, but seem to be doing better now that the picking has stopped.

How long should I leave her separated from the flock? The others have calmed considerably now that a target butt isn't in the brooder, but I don't want to keep her separate for too long, nor do I want to put her back in too soon.

Is there any thing around the house that will help her wounds and also anything that can make her tail feathers a little less tempting to her friends??

 

[ThreesACharm]

I don't have any suggestions other than what you've said (getting them outside for more space), but I went through a similar experience with our red sex-links and with our bobwhite quail chicks. Both times, we isolated the "victim" to stop the pecking; with the chickens, they simply turned on the next-smallest chick and started all over again. And four days later, when we set up a larger brooder, we re-introduced the victim chick and they started picking on her all over again! We ended up having to take her to the vet because she was so badly injured and started pecking out her own feathers, and we were told that because we removed her, it set her at the top of the pecking order as our "favorite," and that they would likely continue to pick on her as long as they continued believing we preferred her to the others. Now that they're outside and free-range during the day, and we don't show a preference, the picking has stopped completely.

Obviously, if she's injured, she NEEDS to be isolated until she heals. But just be prepared that it may cause more problems when you re-introduce her. If you have to keep her isolated for more than 1-2 days (and if she's got open wounds, you definitely should) then I wouldn't allow her back into the flock until they're outside. Also, what we have been doing for isolated chicks is allowing them supervised time with the rest of the flock 2-4 times a day, so that they get acquainted with each other while I'm right there watching to prevent picking. This actually seems to work three-fold -- the victim doesn't spend all of her time by herself and lonely, the rest of the flock doesn't forget who she is, AND I'm right there to "teach" them not to pick on eachother. To stop the "favoritism" problem from coming into play, DON'T pick up/move the chick getting pecked; instead, move or remove the chick doing the pecking -- this also (hopefully) teaches him/her she can't be with the rest of the flock if she can't behave.

I'm by no means an expert on chickens, though! This is just what we did and what seemed to work for us.. it's worth a shot, I think, and hopefully everything works out for the best. I know how bad it is to have chickens who just can't (or won't) get along. Hopefully your poor pecked girl will recover and the issues will stop as soon as they're all outside. Good luck!

 

[MLGarber]

Thanks. It definitely helps. Most of our girls are Red Sex Links. How old were yours when they went to live outside permanently? Some are 2.5 some are 3, close to 4 weeks old. Some of the smaller ones have been able to find ways to sneak out of chicken wire when they are cornered and we're trying to get them back in the brooder for the night.

Because they need the space, I think the best call is going to be the heat lamp in the coop... not sure what to do with the chicken wire situation. Guess I have to buy more (was trying to avoid this)