[buttony22]

Advice needed.  A friend recently purchased 4 hens at quite young age who were very happy.  They have an amazing run with loads to do and all 4 started laying happily.  A couple of weeks ago her 2 white sussex hens attacked one of the others quite viciously leaving a massive gouge in her side, my friend had to get treatment for the poor girl and removed her from the run to heal so the 2 sussex then turned on the other hen.  My friend has now had to seperate the hens and i just wondered what she can do to prevent this and will she ever be able to re-introduce them to each other.

[nic n dave]

i cant help your friend but i do know sorting out the pecking order can be quite vicious, ive recently introduced my hen back into my flock after i separated her to have her chicks and they have been attacking her pulling her feathers out and shes been screeching in pain but they were fine with each other before? so i assume they are re establishing their pecking order even though its not nice!
i heard someone menton before that your supposed to separate the bully one away from the flock so they loose their position as 'top dog' and not remove the bullied one