Hi all. Last night someone that my husband met through work offered to give us a couple chickens. My husband said just one would be fine. So, this morning he brought it over. It's very scared and running around like crazy, freaks out when I get near it. It is also missing all its tail feathers and looks to be on the thin side. What can we do for it? And, it is a hen, right? These were the best pictures I could get because it ran away when ever I got near it...It really makes me sad to see this chicken in such a condition... I'm not sure how we'll catch it to put it in our chicken house...
Do NOT put it in with your other chickens...you should always keep well separated for at least 3-5 weeks before introducing (slowly) to the rest of the flock... The tail feathers perhaps missing from being attacked by another bird in the old flock?
Oh...I didn't know that about not mixing them together right away...we don't have two housings for them...I talked to my husband about that just now and he thinks he'll give this chicken back and is going to call the guy to come back for it... I didn't know chickens would attack other chickens and pick out their feathers, I've never seen a chicken like that before...
The real danger is in introducing disease into your flock. Since you don't really know much about this bird t could be a carrier of, well, ANYTHING! and that could spread to your current flock. With that bird's condition being so poor it would be picked on by the other birds in your flock, most likely...
There's a lot of information here on bringing in a new chicken. I would keep her in a small area for a little bit, give her extra protein, like yogurt and scrambled eggs. And some of the Poly-vi-sol (baby vitamins) and her feathers will come back in. That's what I did for 3 chicks I brought home who had bare spots on them. One looked like a half-plucked chicken. The other 2 looked like her. They are absolutely gorgeous pullets now. Chances are the chickens where she was were beating her up, out of boredom, or too many in a small area. They probably gave her up to give her a chance to live. I think she is worth keeping. Its amazing what some TLC will do too.
Poor thing. It's good of you to give it a home. I'd use a fishing net to catch it and clean it up and put it in a separate pen until it can recover from whatever happened to it. Then slowly introduce it to yours.... after a quarantine period.
Check out this thread on quarantine advice. https://www.backyardchickens.com/forum/viewtopic.php?id=12751
