[Helenw999]

Hi

My hen has recently hatched 7 chicks (they are quite big now) but just the last week all the chicks AND mum have started pecking one of the other chicks! it is now bald around its head and the mob dont give it any rest at all! I have taken it away and put it in a very small group of 3 other chickens but even these have taken an instant dislike to him/her!!

what should I do?

[too many girls]

i have the same problem with one of my hens, i had her in with 27 others and they almost pecked her to death, so i moved her in with another lot and they did the same, so i moved her in with 2 very young cockerels and they picked on her too, she's called lonely and now lives in a stable on her own, she wants so much to be part of the gang but every time she approaches them one goes for her, she runs and they all give chase, someone suggested stockholm tar but she's almost bald and is covered in sores, and i can't see how i could treat her with it even if i had some which i haven't. i'll be interested to see what advice they give you.

[Helenw999]

Yes I have read the same thing about the tar but again I dont really want to put any thing on him/her because of the soar's!

[too many girls]

that came up twice, how did that happen?

[too many girls]

I think we'll have to wait for grannie annie Helen, she seems to know practically everthing about chooks.

[GrannieAnnie]

that came up twice, how did that happen?

Well first of all, I deleted the duplicate post for you TMG, and no, I don't know everything about chooks, Aunt Sally, Munty and Bodger know loads more than me, but I have had a LOT of pecked chickens!!!!!  

My Brian said what you should have done is take the mother hen away, as it was probably her way of telling her chick that it is old enough to stand on its own 2 feet, mind you that's difficult if they are all in together.

I've never used stockholm tar myself, I use either NAF aloe Vera pruple spray, or one of the cheapo vaselines with some liquid paraffin mixed in with it, and someone on here uses tea tree oil, again I would mix it with something like vaseline.

If the chick has sores that the other peck, it should be kept away from the others, but so they can still see each other, then once the sores are healed, try putting the chick back in at night, hopefully the others will just think its been there all the time.

It's awful to see them being pecked, especially the young ones.  At one time when the Amberlinks were small, I had over 60 of them in my makeshift wardrobe hospital bleeding and sore, but they all got out of it, and after that, I only heard of 2 of them that did any pecking again.

Fingers crossed you'll be able to get them sorted, as we did have one of 2 actually pecked to death!!!!

[too many girls]

I don't have any purple spray grannie, as we don't use it on our horses, i thought about vaseline but my birds are kept on shavings and i thought the might stick to her and she would get infected, i've just put wound powder on the sores and left it at that, do you think it's enough?

[Helenw999]

Thanks for that.. I shall keep trying, ... I have some different creams I could put on... Ive got sudocrem .. I wonder if that will do the trick lol

Thank you very much ... lets hope this stops the pecking!

[GrannieAnnie]

Hi TMG, ours run on shavings too, but don't seem to have any probs with bits sticking to them.  they don't like the vaseline much, and will sand and preen themselves a bit, so you have to keep an eye on them and re-apply, but its usually orked for me,

Someone on here said liquid paraffin was hard to get,now, but we got ours in Boots!  The lady said to me, have you used this before?  Only you know you mustn't drink too much of it don't you?  That's okay I said, its not for me, its for my chickens bum!!!! lolol

They will still try pecking him/her a coupe of times, but they don't like the taste and USUALLY stop doing it, but I can't promise anything.  Hope it works okay, poor little thing

[too many girls]

i would love to see the woman from boots face when you said that!

[GrannieAnnie]

It WAS a picture!!!!!   she just went Mmmmmm, £1.25 please!!!!  
     

[peggyprice]

I can also recommend the anti-peck rings - for the full size hens anyway (don't know if they'd fit on chicks  :? ).  They stop the 'hen pecker' from closing her beak onto the victim's feathers (though they don't get in the way of normal feeding and drinking) - which gives the bullied one time to learn that they aren't actually going to get hurt and start standing up for themselves a bit more.

Certainly worked with mine, helped break the cycle and now they all get on absolutely fine.

Got mine from the Domestic Fowl Trust, cheap as chips and v quick delivery.  Fun bit is fitting them  

Have a look here for pics of stylish punk chicken



and here for supplier (don't think they do belly piercings or earrings though   )

http://www.domesticfowltrust.co.uk/sundries1.html

Hope that helps