Had two chickens as babies, one died so got another of the same age 3 weeks ago.Our original hen pecks new one

Question

Any help.Scruffy,new hen arrived with no feathers,was pecked hard by original hen. they have been seperate at night 4,3 weeks as it was not nice to keep them together, they are fine whilst loose+scruffy has grown stubble+laying now. But they cannot be together in a coop and we can't have two runs here as not practible especially this time of year.Any clues on how to get them friendly. Only got Scruffy as the other chickens companion died

Think Fenland Fowl was out of order.,Was asking for some advice not condemnation on how I look after my chickens. They have 5star caring along with all the other animals and they all interact brilliantly.So if there is anyone out there that has some positive solution to this, would be appreciated.

Answer 1

You do need to be prepared to have separate quarters of some sort for the two of them until they get to know each other. You can buy "no-pick" spray for your chickens at a poultry supplier such as cutlersupply.com to help minimize that. New-to-each-other birds will fight sometimes, even kill one another. I wouldn't debeak, I have gamebirds who are sometimes aggressive to each other and I do not debeak. Do they have greenery available? A large area with some green grass will help distract them if they are the foraging type (some chickens do it, other varieties will not.) I also raise poultry, but I do not show mine for fear of bringing in disease. Something else to consider if one dies, what was the cause? And when bringing in new birds, do they have diseases? Mites? Also if you go somewhere that has birds/poultry or have a visitor who has birds/poultry, you could bring in disease. The feed mill is bad about that, too.

Feel free to email me from website, I'll share more.

Answer 2

you will need to keep them separate
until Scruffies feathers have completely grown baclk
so two coops it is ,
or you will have ,one severely pecked Scruffy ( or even dead Scruffy :(
Hens have a strict pecking order and unfortunately poor scruffy seems to be at the bottom of that order .
if you can manage to keep them in coops side by side , they

may just get to like each other a bit more
then in the spring you can try them in the run , which will probably be fine for them both .
I love chickens ,but they need some understanding .
Good luck
>^,,^<


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Answer 3

you have done everything wrong. Firstly, you should never get 2 chickens,. You get 3 so that if one dies, the remaining isn't lonely. Secondly, you got another single one. Chickens can kill new chickens. You should have got another 2 so that the first one was less likely to bully them badly. You cannot simply put them together. They need to be in a run and house side by side so that they can see each other and get used to each other, for about 2 weeks and then at night when they have all gone to roost, put the newcomers with the existing one. If you haven't the facilities to do things properly, you should not be keeping them. I take it you don't know what the other one died of and didn't bother to quarantine the new ones? Do you worm them regularly and are they fed properly? Are they deloused regularly and do you spray the house for redmites often? And if the dead one had Mareks, you will lose them all in any case.
I get really angry that people get chickens without doing any research into looking after them properly, then cause immense suffering as they struggle to survive in unsuitable homes. If they had to pay a lot of money for the chickens, perhaps they would care for them better.
Chickens don't deserve some of the homes they end up in.

Answer 4

You can try putting them together at night after they go to roost. I know if you put a baby chick with a new mom you do it at night and let them get each others smell and she will accept it. Otherwise she will peck it to death.
Also it will probably help if you let Scruffy get her feathers back before putting them together. Anything different causes them to peck each other.

Answer 5

This may sound silly but it works...you might want to try and put the aggressive one in time-out for a long period of time and not just for the night. Try separating them for at least two weeks.

As much as the one may feel territorial, it still needs the companionship of the other(s). This extended separation will help it realize the importance of getting along and therefore not try to be as dominant.

Answer 6

I dont think there is much you can do unfortunately. Scruffy is lower in the pecking order than the original chicken!

Answer 7

Its because Scruffy is a stranger, could you put a divider up in your coop till they get used to each other

Answer 8

it's like any other animal - the one you got first will fight to the death because he thinks it's his territory
What did the other die of??

Answer 9

just de-beak the pair of them, that's just clipping the point off the top beak so its slightly shorter than the bottom one, then they can hammer away and not do any harm.

Answer 10

How would you feel if your partner died and someone just bought you another!!