KanoasDestiny
Well-Known Member
I finally found a local woman (30 minutes away) that was selling chickens close to the same age as Joey and Pacey (mine will be four months on the 20th, her's are four and a half months). We went and chatted with her for about an hour, and I bought three beautiful young hens - two Red Stars and a golden Americauna.
I have been working with Joey a lot and he totally avoids me when I enter the pen, choosing to eat instead of follow his sister when she comes near me. I figured that a couple more hens would help with keeping his hormones in check. I asked the woman what the best way of introducing the hens to my two was, and she said to introduce the hens into the coop in the evening (a mistake I am now aware of). She warned me that there would be some pecking to establish dominance and what not. At first Joey was calm, inspecting the hens and chasing them around a bit. Then he started to try to breed them. It was terrible! He'd grab ahold of them by the neck and rip out their feathers as he tried to climb on their backs. They screamed bloody murder and finally, my husband went into the coop with the broom and threatened Joey to leave the girls alone. He settled on the roost for the night, and the three girls settled in a corner.
The golden Americauna was missing a lot of feathers (all tail feathers and along lower back) when I went to pick my girls out. I wasn't going to get her because I was scared she was sick or extremely docile to the point where she was getting picked on by everyone else. But she reminded me of a hawk, and I felt sorry for her because she kept trying to shove herself into the furthest corner under everyone else. So I ended up getting her and naming her Dawson. The other two were named Jen and Andy, after the other characters of Dawson's Creek. I figured that Andy would be the dominant hen because she kept pecking at the other two and was kind of bossy.
This morning, the two stars were eating before I went to work. The Americauna was still hiding in the corner, not eating. Joey and Pacey were beyond calm, calmer then I'd ever seen them, so i figured he already had his "hormones" taken care of. When I came home five hours later, Andy was laying dead in the grass. Her head was scalped from the very top of her head, all the way down to her lowest neck. I was beyond heartbroken. I saw Jen right away and knew that she was unhurt, but I went looking for Dawson and found her in the corner with ants crawling on her. When I looked closer, she was also scalped on the back of her neck, really bloody, and had a deep puncture wound in her neck that was oozing blood. I rushed her in the house, washed it off, put antibiotics on it, and she is now residing in my spare bedroom. I pray that she will make a full recovery. She has just started becoming more animated, walking around, eating a little and drinking, and she keeps making little cooing noises.
Joey was taken out of the coop, and is now in his own small pen by himself. Sadly, he seems to be at ease being alone. If I had known that, he would have been by himself a lot sooner then now. His sister Pacey is reacting to the seperation a lot worse then he is. We will be building him a smaller pen (8X8) connected to the hens pen (12X16), so that he will still be close to the others, but we will have two layers of wire and mesh between them, and that is the closest he will ever be to another chicken again.
I feel so very guilty over this. No animal deserves to die that way, or be tortured. I don't know if he was intending to kill them, or if he was being too aggressive while trying to breed. But regardless, it doesn't matter either way...he will never have another chance to repeat whatever went wrong. I'm just so sad that I had to lose one of my beautiful new hens (maybe two if Dawson doesn't recover), to finally remove the problem.
Has anyone ever had anything like this happen before? I thought roosters only tried to kill other roosters? What is the best way to treat Dawson's wounds? If she does recover, what will be the best way of reintroducing her back into the hen coop, so that she doesn't get picked on by the other two hens?
I have been working with Joey a lot and he totally avoids me when I enter the pen, choosing to eat instead of follow his sister when she comes near me. I figured that a couple more hens would help with keeping his hormones in check. I asked the woman what the best way of introducing the hens to my two was, and she said to introduce the hens into the coop in the evening (a mistake I am now aware of). She warned me that there would be some pecking to establish dominance and what not. At first Joey was calm, inspecting the hens and chasing them around a bit. Then he started to try to breed them. It was terrible! He'd grab ahold of them by the neck and rip out their feathers as he tried to climb on their backs. They screamed bloody murder and finally, my husband went into the coop with the broom and threatened Joey to leave the girls alone. He settled on the roost for the night, and the three girls settled in a corner.
The golden Americauna was missing a lot of feathers (all tail feathers and along lower back) when I went to pick my girls out. I wasn't going to get her because I was scared she was sick or extremely docile to the point where she was getting picked on by everyone else. But she reminded me of a hawk, and I felt sorry for her because she kept trying to shove herself into the furthest corner under everyone else. So I ended up getting her and naming her Dawson. The other two were named Jen and Andy, after the other characters of Dawson's Creek. I figured that Andy would be the dominant hen because she kept pecking at the other two and was kind of bossy.
This morning, the two stars were eating before I went to work. The Americauna was still hiding in the corner, not eating. Joey and Pacey were beyond calm, calmer then I'd ever seen them, so i figured he already had his "hormones" taken care of. When I came home five hours later, Andy was laying dead in the grass. Her head was scalped from the very top of her head, all the way down to her lowest neck. I was beyond heartbroken. I saw Jen right away and knew that she was unhurt, but I went looking for Dawson and found her in the corner with ants crawling on her. When I looked closer, she was also scalped on the back of her neck, really bloody, and had a deep puncture wound in her neck that was oozing blood. I rushed her in the house, washed it off, put antibiotics on it, and she is now residing in my spare bedroom. I pray that she will make a full recovery. She has just started becoming more animated, walking around, eating a little and drinking, and she keeps making little cooing noises.
Joey was taken out of the coop, and is now in his own small pen by himself. Sadly, he seems to be at ease being alone. If I had known that, he would have been by himself a lot sooner then now. His sister Pacey is reacting to the seperation a lot worse then he is. We will be building him a smaller pen (8X8) connected to the hens pen (12X16), so that he will still be close to the others, but we will have two layers of wire and mesh between them, and that is the closest he will ever be to another chicken again.
I feel so very guilty over this. No animal deserves to die that way, or be tortured. I don't know if he was intending to kill them, or if he was being too aggressive while trying to breed. But regardless, it doesn't matter either way...he will never have another chance to repeat whatever went wrong. I'm just so sad that I had to lose one of my beautiful new hens (maybe two if Dawson doesn't recover), to finally remove the problem.
Has anyone ever had anything like this happen before? I thought roosters only tried to kill other roosters? What is the best way to treat Dawson's wounds? If she does recover, what will be the best way of reintroducing her back into the hen coop, so that she doesn't get picked on by the other two hens?