Chicken bullying

[Shirls]

I now have a problem with my chooks bullying Aurelia. She is a different colour and apparently chooks are supposed to be colour prejudiced (so I've been told anyway). Aurelia is my lacewing Orpington, and she really is a beauty.

This is a picture of her, from a few weeks back, with her bald patch.
Aurelia 1 by on Flickr

This was a few weeks ago and more feathers have been pecked from her ear muffs, and this morning she was being pecked by one of the buffs continually, and she just put her head down and took it!! Didn't run away or anything. I checked her out as I thought she had blood on her, but it was just more feather plucked from around her face.

She is such a sweetie (and she lays such beautiful eggs) I have had to separate her off. She will go in to roost with the others of a night time (this is allowed apparently as they are all docile then - I hope!!!), and then be put back in quarantine again for the next few days. I hope it's not for long as we have hot weather coming again.

It breaks my heart to see her like this, but hopefully it will soon get sorted.

[Deleted]

Awww poor little girl. Thats really sad

Would getting one the same type as Aurelia help her?

[jellybean]

Poor girl, I hate to see this happen.
Do you think the point that Jane made would help, Shirls.

[OP]

Ee! there's alu's trouble 't mill. Why can't they all get on with each other.
Sorry to hear this Shirls. I thought all was going along swimmingly.

[Marianne Marlow]

Poor Aurelia, she's so beautiful too.

Come on girlies, don't be so mean!

Chickens, colour prejudiced? really? - well I never.

I hope you come up with a solution.

[Hezz]

Survival instincts, you'd have to think. Poor lovely. My instinctive reaction was the same as Jane's post - another lacewing??

[Shirls]

Yes possibly another 'Aurelia' may help, but then you have the quarantine thing and then there are no guarantees that they will get on with one another (like budgies) and they also would have to get on with the older girlies. At the moment Aurelia is 'quarantined' and seems to be enjoying treats ALL to herself, and being able to feed when she likes. She does however pace up and down a bit, wanting to come out. She came out last night on her own and dived into the run to go to sleep with the others! (I'm glad to say this too.)

[Hezz]

What a situation! Of course another doesn't just happen; there are all those other things to be considered.

Supposedly, studies have shown that the wild budgies alienate any that show any of the mutations (that do happen naturally); those that aren't the natural green, yellow and black, and that is considered to be a survival instinct - kick out the odd-bod so as to not draw attention to the flock, plus no one wants to mate with the "weirdo". I guess we all hoped chooks were a little more domesticated than that.

[Marianne Marlow]

I can just see me with a net in the wild, saving all the "weirdo" budgies and looking after them..

[samwiseg]

Mind you, if you got another Lacewing like Aurelia, wouldn't that just change the pecking order so that the new Lacewing would be bullied instead?

[Shirls]

Possibly samwiseg!!! Who really knows??

[Hezz]

But harder to bully two of the same kind. Once numbers start to equal out, even in the playground, things get better. Safety in numbers.

[samwiseg]

MMmm...what will you do Shirls?

[Shirls]

There is absolutely no chance of getting any more chickens at the moment samwiseg. 6 is quite enough, I started off with 4 and as some passed, some were taken etc., etc., the numbers increased to 6. I would go off to buy 2 chickens and come back with 3 and I can't say they 'fell into my pocket' either!!

On another note: Tilly has got a sore throat, noticed it the day before yesterday. No improvement yesterday, so off to the vet we trotted. She is now on Baytril until the bottle is finished (about 7 days).

As my favourite chookie vet was in attendance I opted to take Tuppence in too (today) and she has been given a clean bill of health thankfully. I always worry about her as she is well overweight and struggles breathing, especially in this hot weather which we can't seem to get through.

Both Tilly and Tuppence weigh 4.40 Kgs. whatever that is in pounds I'm not sure. About 9 1/2 lbs I guess. Which is a good weight for a cockerel!!!

[Hezz]

Sorry, not laughing about the sore throat or the vet visit. Chooks don't quite have the pocket-fitting dimensions that budgies do.

Does their ... um .... bigness have anything to do with the feet problems you have had?