Hello all,
I’m new to keeping chickens and I’ve got a bit of a problem;
I bought a large A frame coop from a local farmer who had been keeping up to 10 chickens in it. It’s got a large roosting/nest box compartment at one end and an open run 10 feet long. Unfortunately I couldn’t get all the chickens at the same time so I started with 3 laying hens and then a few days later added 6 pullets (3 to 7 months old) and that’s where the problems started.
The 3 hens had already established a pecking order and set on the new arrivals, so I put in a wire screen 3/4 the way down the run and segregated the hens. At night they all go into the roosting compartment together and apart from a few initial squawks they seem to get on ok. However when I let them out in the morning there’s been a good deal of aggressive pecking and chasing going on, so the hens go back into their segregated pen. (The smallest pullet was particularly singled out and after 4 days is still limping from a nasty peck on the leg).
After a few days of this I tried mixing in the hens with the new arrivals one by one, so 2 segregated, 1 in with the others, a different one each day. This seemed to go ok until a couple of days ago when the 2 prisoners worked out a way to get past my screen (chickens are cleverer than you’d think) and I found one of the new arrivals pecked to death in the roosting compartment (not a pretty sight). So the “girls” are now back in seg…
What do I do next? Will they ever get on, or will I have to get rid of the pullets? As there are open fields I want to be able to let them out to free range, but I’m pretty sure that they need to be a cohesive flock before I can do that. One of the hens (Glenda) is particularly aggressive, will getting rid of her help settle things down? Any suggestions, ideas? Help?