Trouble integrating

[MissEmily123]

Morning! So I have 5 hens, well, 4 for sure, ones tail is not very perky, may be a rooster. Anyways. We started off with three, red leghorn and araucana who are roughly 5 or 6 months old, and a black Jersey giant, a barred rock, and a violet orphington,who are 3 or so months. We started with three, one died and another turned out to be a rooster, so we brought him back and got three more giving us the 5 we have now.

The issue is, however, the araucana is being incredibly nasty to the smaller girls. They do nothing but hide when she's around, and she even pecked a hole in my barreds head(which is healing very well). We've had her in a wire kennel since Wednesday, inside the coop, and I just let her out this morning. The littles are already hiding and I believe she's gone right back to being awful.

Sad for the littles, they don't even go outside, and I don't know that any are using the roots, and the whole situation is very stressful.

I'm hoping I can find help here, and not have to get rid of her, or doctor any more chickens.

 

[Pork Pie]

It can happen that the odd chicken simply refuses to play ball when it comes to being part of a flock. I guess thinking about your set up would be a good place to begin. What size is your coop (4 sqft per bird recommended), size of your run (10 sqft per bird), number of feeding stations, creation of "safe areas" where victims can get out of harms way to name but a few.

You don't detail how you introduced the newbies to the flock. Here's a few threads on the topic -



https://www.backyardchickens.com/t/1015820/reintegration-by-supervised-visits#post_15742910

https://www.backyardchickens.com/a/adding-to-your-flock

https://www.backyardchickens.com/t/1126547/topic-of-the-week-integrating-chicks-into-an-adult-flock

https://www.backyardchickens.com/t/1069595/introducing-chicks-to-adults#post_16276224

https://www.backyardchickens.com/a/introducing-new-chickens-using-the-see-but-don-t-touch-method

https://www.backyardchickens.com/t/1098683/introducing-new-chickens-to-old-flock#post_16895615

CT

 

[MissEmily123]

We definitely didn't take that long to integrate them. I'll see if I can attach a photo of the coop. It's an 8x12 building, and the run is a total of 35x3.

Small update. The araucana pecked the barreds head open. I'll post a picture once I get one.