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Barnyard Buddies:  Help, chicken picken on each other  |
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Cozynana
True Blue Farmgirl
1123 Posts
Kem
1123 Posts |
 Posted - Aug 26 2013 : 6:22:11 PM
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| My chickens are picking on each other and some have bald spots the size of softballs on their backs. They have to be penned up because lf our dogs. They get weeds every day, a flock block, and regular,chicken feed. What causes this? My first batch of chickensI raised did not do this. It is stressing me out. |
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AlyssaMarie
True Blue Farmgirl
287 Posts
AlyssaMarie
Palouse
Washington
USA
287 Posts |
Posted - Aug 27 2013 : 07:37:05 AM
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You can by special little chicken armor aprons online. I saw an ad in the back of Mother Earth News recently. You can also try separating the bald ones out from the rest of the flock until their feathers regrow. If you see the spots getting bloody from pecking you really should immediately separate that bird out. Chickens can be cannibals and if they see blood they will continue to peck at the blood until the bird is dead. Its not a good situation.
AlyssaMarie @ Link'd Hearts Ranch
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oldbittyhen
True Blue Farmgirl
1511 Posts
tina
quartz hill
ca
USA
1511 Posts |
Posted - Aug 27 2013 : 07:47:27 AM
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check your chickens for lice, if they have them, they will pick at each other and themselves, trying to get the lice, take wood ash from your stove/fireplace, make a depression in the dirt in your coop, fill with ash, the chicken will dust bathe in it and the lice will suffocate...
"Knowlege is knowing that a tomato is a fruit, Wisdom is not putting it in a fruit salad" |
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RedHoopWoman
True Blue Farmgirl
513 Posts
Kathryn
Yoder
Colorado
USA
513 Posts |
Posted - Sep 02 2013 : 11:26:37 AM
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There are a lot of reasons that chickens will do this such as boredom,overcrowding,insufficient protein or other nutrients in diet,etc...
One thing I find helps in the case of boredom in confined chickens is to have deep litter all through the coop so that they have plenty to scratch around in and maybe once a day you can throw in some handfuls of cracked corn or other such treats that they have to work to find in the deep litter.
Another thing you can do for the chickens who are really pecked badly is to put a big glob of petroleum jelly over the wound,I mean a good sized glob so that the offending peckers will get a big glob of goo when they peck that chicken,this drives them to distraction wiping ther faces and disrupts the thought process,this worked real well for me when I had some Dark Cornish hens who would viciously peck eachother.
Do try Tina's ash remedy as well if you do find lice or even if you don't see any evidence of lice,it's a great preventative as well as treatment.
I hope some of these suggestions helps.
"Today's Mighty Oak is just Yesterday's Nut"
Nostalgic Needleworks http://www.etsy.com/shop/NostalgicNeedleworks https://www.facebook.com/NostalgicNeedleworks |
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Barnyard Buddies: Help, chicken picken on each other |
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Help, chicken picken on each other
