Chicken social skills class? Helping our new girl fit in

[kokotg]

We have a new "rescue chicken" thanks to an ill-conceived adorable chick from feed store acquisition on the part of my aunt's neighbor a few months back. She's an Easter Egger, maybe 5 months old, and the kids have named her Cupcake. Our pre-existing flock consists of five 2 year old hens and then 4 more that were hatched in March (and are therefore just about the same size as the new one). We've added new chickens in to the flock twice now, but never just one at a time. We picked Cupcake up on Thursday, and no one's being very nice to her. She spends a lot of time huddled in a corner by herself. I kept them separated the first day, but they've been loose together since then. No one's really hurting her, I don't think; they peck her and then leave her alone when she runs away. But I feel so bad for her. Is there anything I can do? Will she make friends eventually, or are we destined to have this tragic reenactment of middle school play out in my yard every day for the rest of her life? Anyone have experience with this?

[fairfarmhand]

perhaps put her in a cage in the coop for a few days so they can all safely get used to one another???

[Corraleno]

We recently added a rescue chicken (a very timid, skinny white hen) to our flock of fat & happy Buff Orps, and they chased her around for the first week or so, but now they mostly leave her alone. She's still not "one of the gang" — the rest of the hens were from the same brood and are very egalitarian (no apparent pecking order, all eat together, etc), so the white chicken is still somewhat marginalized. But at least she's not being pecked to bits. They still make her eat last when there are juicy food scraps to be had, but she gets to sleep in the coop (just not with the other hens) and she eats her fill when the others are done. So, yeah, a lot like middle school! :glare:

 

OTOH, at least there's no physical bullying and it's better than being in a soup pot!

 

Jackie

[Hen]

we had this happen, too. We had an original flock of 4, then purchased 2 more..which worked out well-kind of the flock of 4 pushed the 2 new ones out and around, but they could hang out together, so it worked. Until the dog next door injured 1 of the 2 and we had to put her down. It broke my heart to see the lonely hen by herself all the time. It eventually got mostly better, they let her hang with them, but chase her off when eating or just out of the blue sometimes.

 

I read somewhere that some farmers will introduce a new hen at night, when the hens are all sleeping, just plop her down with the rest. Might work.

[kokotg]

we had this happen, too. We had an original flock of 4, then purchased 2 more..which worked out well-kind of the flock of 4 pushed the 2 new ones out and around, but they could hang out together, so it worked. Until the dog next door injured 1 of the 2 and we had to put her down. It broke my heart to see the lonely hen by herself all the time. It eventually got mostly better, they let her hang with them, but chase her off when eating or just out of the blue sometimes.

 

I read somewhere that some farmers will introduce a new hen at night, when the hens are all sleeping, just plop her down with the rest. Might work.

 

Yeah...that's the thing...my observation based on our other new chicken intros is that there's not a whole lot of social mobility in the chicken world--the ones who started out together still tend to hang out together mostly. Good to hear that it should get somewhat better, though. I'm tempted to go get one more about her age in hopes that they'll bond, but I'm worried it would backfire and I'd just wind up with TWO social outcasts.

 

We sort of did introduce her at night--they saw her during the day, but I had her penned off so they couldn't get to her, then I put her in there with the younger ones that night.