We Need HELP! edited: THIS.....Is.....NOT....Working!!!

[bantymum]

Do you like chicken soup???? no only kidding!!
Ummm try a week in the slammer, i know its hard and im here typing while you have to do the hard work and look her in the eyes.
Maybe someone else can suggest alternate punishment.
Can you send her to rehab to another chicken owners house for a week, she may come back a little hen pecked herself and with less attitude.
Good luck.

 

[Farmer Kitty]

Have you tried clipping the point off of the beak of the bird doing the pecking? We had problems with a turkey and that took care of it. The point grew back later, but by then the naughty habit had been broken.

 

[SeaChick]

Well, Hazel is in "jail" in my office, and she is most unhappy. The other girls are all fine, nobody pecking anyone else.

I don't know how I'm going to be able to handle Hazel crying in my office for days on end.... how long do you think I need keep her away from the others?

Sigh.

Thanks for your ideas, all...

Stacey

 

[SeaChick]

This is NOT WORKING OUT!!!

How long do I need to keep the bullying hen seperate from the others in order to "break" her extreme pecking attitiude towards one other hen?

Hazel has been "in jail" in my office for almost 24 hours and she is driving herself -and me!- mad!!!!! She has broken down the walls of the makeshift cage several times (the dog crate wasn't big enough for her, food and water, I didn't think) and I have rebuilt it stronger. With perches, nest areas, food and water raised up, et. Now she is crying constantly and THROWING herself at the walls of the cage (screens) and CONSTANTLY knocking waterer, etc. I can't refill it fast enough. I just don't knwo what to do. She is so stressed out and so am I. I can't get ANY work done, needless to say......

Plus she didn't lay an egg yesterday and probably needs to but is too freaked out!


So-------- PLEASE ADVISE!! How much longer do you think I need to keep her seperated from Rita to break the pattern? If it is many, many days, I think we are going to have to actually BUILD something in the basement where I can't see/hear her. This is just TOO SAD, heartbreaking, and stressful.

THANK YOU......

 

[Buff Hooligans]

My guess is that maybe Hazel doesn't have both oars in the water (if you know what I mean), and that she is going crazy with or without another hen to beat up.

I'm sorry I have no ideas. I don't think it's ever come up on this board before. A normal hen kept in isolation might pine a bit, being lonely, but not go berserk like Hazel? I don't know.

 

[speckledhen]

Vicks Vaporub or Mentholatum on where the other hen is pecking her may discourage her. Tastes nasty. Cant hurt to try it that if you choose to put them back together. It's a hard problem to deal with.

 

[silkiechicken]

Sounds like you have a hen who doesn't like to be cooped up. I adopted a hen from a member who made a long drive to drop her off just because it would not stop screaming and just being plain neurotic. She had to keep the girls cooped up where she lived and the hen was just not happy, so on an emergency life or death of the hen, she brought it down to seattle.

As soon as I let her out with my birds, breaking all quarintene rules, and not even showing her where home was, she was quiet. I just let her out of transport and left her in the middle of the drive way in sight of the rest of the birds. She followed the top rooster home to one of the coops with no fuss on the first night. She got pecked on by the "elders", decided to sleep with the silkies in their run for a few nights, and now has chosen to live back with the birds her size. Never heard any unusual sounds or noises and was well...a quiet hen.... Free ranging and a rooster to dominate her seemed to calm her down quite a bit as she was nothing like what her previous owner described. Maybe that girl is a free spirit and just doesn't like city life? Not sure how long it will take to break her but I sure hope something can be figured out. Good luck!

 

[SeaChick]

Sigh....thanks guys... I fear that silkiechicken may be right and hazel just won't be happy. (Although she was totally FINE until a few days before she bagan laying when all this nonsense began....)

She is settled down right now. Hasn't freaked in an hour or so. So I will just watch and wait. And then the plan is, when we do try re-introducing her to the other 4 girls, to coat Rita's (the victim's) back with mentholatum and to sit and watch with a squirt gun, and squirt Hazel if she tries to peck. That's the plan anyway. If it doesn't work, well, then, I guess she will have to find a home in the country. But we all be very, very sad if that has to happen.

Feel free to chime in with any other ideas!!!

Thanks,
Stacey

 

[ivan3]

Well, when our (then 9) pullets started laying, it wasn't unusual to hear a LOT of yammering, and go out to find three sets of tail feathers extending from the opening of one of three five gallon nesting buckets. That phase finally passed after a month or so (after much loud growling/whining/yelping!!).

We kept one of the hens indoors for a little over two weeks owing to a very badly cut foot (hence her name: Bad Foot). She was in a folding dog cage. We spread an old sheet out on the floor and folded it up over the sides (keeps in all bedding/waste) and when she'd become particularly loud about her objections to incarceration we would just pull the excess sheeting over the top (less stimulation/light) and she'd calm down a bit.

We used pine tar on the turks to cut down on the sparring, in Very small amounts (can be toxic), but it can be hard to work with if not cut with a solvent and is particularly messy.

Good luck taming the shrew!

 

[verthandi]

Long shot....try Rescue Remedy on her.