Allotment Gardening Advice Help Chat

Poultry and Pets => The Hen House => Topic started by: Welli on April 14, 2012, 09:30

Title: Advice Needed - Reintroducing a bird to the flock
Post by: Welli on April 14, 2012, 09:30

Hi,
I'd really appreciate some advice please.
My husband I first started keeping chickens when we moved into our current house 1 1/2 years ago and it came with a coop and 2 chickens who we were told were at least 3 years old. Since then we have increased the flock to 8 birds but unfortunately we lost one of the original 2 to a fox last year.
Last autumn when a number of the birds were in moult we started to find that the 1 original bird (Matilda)was increasingly suffering from bullying and despite given them more things to entertain them it came to a head when she was bullied up onto a perch and she was too scared to come down for food or water. At this point we separated her from the flock (but within sight of them) and gave her some pampering as she was underweight. We tried reintroducing her the following weekend but they nearly tore her to pieces in the first few minutes. Since then she has lived in an Eglu alongside the main coop. She is only 6" from the rest of the flock but separated by 2 layers of wire.
I have since learnt that you should never try introducing just 1 bird to a flock and was thinking that if we got a new bird and introduced her to the Eglu, we then may be able to reintroduce the 2 birds to the main flock successfully.
Has anyone else had this sort of problem? I don't want to reintroduce Matilda if there is no chance that the flock will accept her again but I also don't think it's good for her to be on her own. Any thoughts anyone has would be most welcome.

Title: Re: Advice Needed - Reintroducing a bird to the flock
Post by: ANHBUC on April 14, 2012, 13:02

Hi Welli and welcome to the site.   :D

Is there one hen in particular that you think is leading the attack?  If so it would be best to put her into the Eglu and try Matilda back with the main flock.  If your Eglu will take more birds and you feel there are more bullies you can put the troublemakers in the naughty corner (Eglu).  Try it for a week or so and reintroduce the least bullying bird back first then the next a couple of days later until they are all back.  This way you can monitor how they react to Matilda.

Good luck and keep us up to date on yours and Matildas progress.   :)