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mboreham1

New Chickens, one weak and bleeding - HELP!!!

mboreham1
14 years ago

Ok, i am new here, just a rookie urban farmer! I just built a chicken coop and got 3 Rhode Island Red chickens and 2 Bantams. One of the Bantams is small and was shaking when i first put them into the coop. All of the chickens are female. I checked on them every 20 minutes or so for the first day. Saturday evening i went out only to find the smallest bantam bleeding and defeathered on her back courtesy of one the RIR's.

I separated the bantam, built another coop that would fit inside the coop i just built so that all the chickens could still see and smell each other in the hope that when re introducing them it would go a lot smoother with no pecking.

My father in law mentioned that sometimes poultry will peck a sick bird to death, is this true? How can i tell if the bird is sick? It seems distressed - lots of shaking and high pitched tweeting (Sorry if my lingo is not correct, like i said i am a rookie!) How can i tell the difference between hens sorting the pecking order and one bully hen trying to kill my bantam? It has lots of water, food and hen scratch, they are not laying eggs yet, i was told they were too young.

ANY ADVICE IS MUCH APPRECIATED!

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