You would think chickens could be nice and get along but no . . at least one of them is pecking the others. Yesterday I took the one doing the pecking out and let her run around outside the pen all day. Some punishment that was . . she loved it!
She had been pecking all the chickens but one was missing a bunch of feathers. I had been reading about how to stop them from pecking and there are several products that are supposed to work. We used them with the chickens in MO, without much success, so I was reluctant to buy more of it.
One thing for sure . . if they draw blood, they will all start pecking and they’ll eventually kill the bleeding chicken.
When I was checking for eggs, the chicken with the most feathers missing had a tiny little bloody spot so I knew I had to take action immediately.
The most interesting “fix” I read was to cover the spot with duck tape. Because their skin is so dusty, what I read said that the duck tape will not stick to the skin and will eventually come off by itself, hopefully after some new feathers have grown out.
I picked her up and we sat down, and I explained to her what I was going to do. I was careful not to tape her wings down.
Then I let her run around outside the pen too. Since there’s nothing green left in their pen, we’ve been letting them run around outside in the yard for a couple of hours in the evenings. That’s also supposed to cut back on the boredom and help stop them from pecking on each other. We’ll see.
Of course, Roscoe immediately saw this as a new hen he could go courting.
Here he is doing his little dance around here. He was in rooster heaven yesterday with three hens out running around with him.
Debra says
hilarious! Not a harmed animal, of course, but the solution.
Vicki W says
Awesome!
Margie Campbell says
That is why they call it the “pecking order”… Happens in all animal groups…even in humans.
Diana in RR TX says
Did you see on Raverly there is a knit tunic type thing for chickens?
marion morgan says
Judy, this is a riot. I never knew chickens could be so entertaining and so funny. Like others, my husband is enjoying your blog more and more.
Becky in VA says
I love your chicken stories!
Marla says
Judy-you can’t use duck tape on a chicken! You have to use chicken tape. LOL! Ok, I’m bad!
Kerstin says
I had a chicken get attacked by a hawk once. Our dog scared off the hawk before it could do too much damage and my daughter rushed the chicken to the vet. $100. later she was good as new. After that we called her “the chicken who lived” after Harry Potter.
Jo says
When my guineas did that, i put neosporin on the bleeding spots. It seemed to stop the others from pecking and helped to heal at the same time.
Jeanette Shouse says
Judy, Was watching Storage Wars and one of the items they took to be appraised/identified were several pairs of tiny glasses with red lenses. Guess what they were made for?? CHICKENS! They were put on chickens in close quarters to masque any blood spots to keep them from killing each other if they saw blood. Me thinks they may be worse than bulls!
Susan says
We read somewhere that when chickens are intent on pecking each other, you can hang up a head of cabbage that keeps them busy and seems to stop them from doing it. We periodically hang one for our chickens and so far (crossing my fingers) it has worked. 🙂
ava says
What good information. Our baby chicks are one week old today. It’s amazing what they can do in the first week. They zoomed across state lines in various trucks to get here in a shoebox sized mail conveyance. A tiny cricket got into their domain and one little chick pecked him up in seconds and started running around the box with the other 26 chicks scrambling after him. Today we put a shovel full of sod and soil in the box. The chicks are in heaven with the soft green grass (once they got over being scared of it). They’re sleeping on it, pecking it, scratching it and everything else baby chicks can do.