A friend of mine asked me if I'd take her 2 white bantams as she had just adopted some battery hens and the white bantams were being attacked by the new battery hens despite being introduced at night time and waiting a few days to see if things settled down.
I introduced the newcomers at night time and when I let them all into their run enclosure in the morning I watched as my resident hens attacked the 2 white bantam newcomers quite visciously and eventually cornered the poor things in the back of the coop and the noise was awful.
Luckily I had an old rabbit run so I put the 2 newcomers inside the rabbit run actually inside the hen's run enclosure so they could still get used to each other without any fights. At night I had to transfer the 2 newcomers into a cat carrier inside the coop for their own safety.
After a few days I let them all mix together and immediately the resident hens started on the newcomers – I stood back and waited and things hadn't calmed down within an hour if anything they were getting worse and so had to separate the parties again.
This carried on for 3 weeks and I even tried anti-pecking spray on the newcomers which seemed put the resident hens off for about 20 minutes and then they didn't seem to care about how bad the newcomers tasted and the pecking attacks continued (the anti-pecking spray actually seemed to annoy them and make them more determined)
After speaking to my vet – who said I had already tried everything he would have suggested I had to rehome the newcomers for their own safety – another friend who lives nearby took them on for me
Is it that sometimes a flock establishes itself and wont accept any newcomers?
Kelly
xxxxxx
CHICKENS-101@yahoogroups.com
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