I’m just one of those people that worries about everything. Right now my mind is on our little white hen. She’s always been picked on by our brown hen and rooster. We even had to keep her in a dog crate in the laundry room for over 4 months last year because the rooster was a little too fiesty with giving her lovin’ and she had lost most of the feathers on her back.
If you know anything about chickens you know that if there is any sign of injury or weakness, there’s a good chance the other chickens will pick on that chicken – some times to death. So we had her in our laundry room for a long time. After a few months we started thinking the feathers were never going to grow back, but luckily she finally went through molting (shedding old and growing new) and her back and upper wings filled out with feathers again.
They’ve all been happily exploring the back yard, scratching at the dirt, eating bugs and enjoying the random treats we give them, together, for at least 6 months now. There have been times when I see the other two being rude, but no blood shed. Until today when I got a call from Blaine about how he saw some blood back there and the white chicken didn’t look good. When I got home I scooped her up (sounds a lot easier than it is) after a little fight with the rooster after which I locked him in the coop on a time out. I took a damp cloth to her feathers, she actually smelled like blood, but I couldn’t find much of a wound.
So I guess we’ll go back to being that family with one lone chicken in the laundry room. I keep telling Blaine we should buy her chicken diapers and have her live indoors. I realize that sounds insane, but come on, an indoor chicken? Hilarious.
Meanwhile, we’ll be setting up a dog crate in there (again) until she is no longer bloody or has any speck of an injury or else the other chickens won’t stop. And I’ll be brainstorming ways to figure all of this out. My thoughts are we either need to get more chickens (preferred) or get rid of the rooster. I refuse to give him to someone who will eat, fight or kill him so that’s a toughie.
Why did we think having chickens was going to be easy?
I vote for more chickens!
That’s my vote too! We’re not risking it with chicks again, we’re going to wait until we find someone rehoming some older ones that we can tell aren’t roosters.
YES to chicken diapers!
Isn’t that the funniest thing EVER!?
omg, Chicken diapers!! YES! Poor little hen though. I’ve wanted chickens since we bought our place. We have land. The husband just won’t go for it though. He thinks they are too noisy and poop a lot. 🙁
They DO poop a lot and they are a bit noisier than I expected, especially the Rooster haha. Luckily the two lots next to us are empty, so the neighbors aren’t dealing with the volume. Not having to buy eggs is awesome, though! It was an easy choice for me as a vegetarian because I didn’t want to put my money into the factory farming industry and we had the land so we just went for it.
The picture of a chicken in a laundry room cracked me up. I lost one of my two chickens last December, and ever since I’ve been scheming on how crazy it would be to bring Gracie inside. 😉 Where did you get your chicks from? I bought mine “sexed” from the farm store. They cost a bit more but then you don’t have that rooster dilemma . . .
Sorry about your chicken! I think it’d be so funny to have an indoor chicken. We got ours from a farm store too, they said there was a 98% chance all female, but that they occasionally throw in a male by accident. We’re just unlucky like that.