Friday, August 27, 2010

One Bad Flock Of Birds

These chickens are brutal to each other!!

 Look how they have made a bald spot on the back of this Rhode Island Red. All but the Golden Sexlinks have some feathers missing back here. They must be the more dominate birds in this flock. 

 And this one, another Rhode Island Red, (you can't see too well she wasn't cooperating with me) she is bald all underneath her wing. 

They have plucked a good part of her feathers away.

I have tried a couple things to see if they would stop trying to peck each other to death. I read on the internet to put a bale of hay in their coop. I am giving that a try. I think maybe they need some more greens in their diet. I was hoping my birds would all be nice and pretty, not mangy looking. Their battle scars just gives them more character.


This is the first injured bird, a Black Sexlink. She is such a pretty bird. She loves to run up the gate when I come down into the garden. I have hit her with the door a couple times cause I didn't know she was there. :( 
 She is doing much better though, her wound heals well as long as I don't put her back in the coop too long or the other birds will open it up again. Chickens are social animals though so she wants to be in the coop with her friends but I think she has come to realize that she gets hurt when she is in there. She misses her roosting area though, so whenever I let them all out she runs in there to roost for a bit.
These are some crazy chickens, hopefully we make it through this pecking disorder.

1 comment:

Brandon and Krystyn said...

I love reading about your crazy chickens!! Are they laying tons of eggs?? That one egg that had another inside was insane! Both Brandon and I were scratching our heads on that one:) Thanks for the update, miss you!