An isolation coop is a must
for every chicken-owner. Hopefully you’ll seldom have to use it,
but if a chicken is being picked on mercilessly by the flock, having a
spot to put the downtrodden hen can mean the difference between life
and death.
It’s sometimes hard to
tell what started the pecking. We’ve only had to separate three
hens from the flock in the last five years or so — one was old and
coming to a natural end of her life, one had been overmated by a
rooster so she started to bleed, and this most recent hen somehow
became our current rooster’s punching bag. We considered culling
the rooster, but he’s treating all of his other ladies with gentlemanly
aplomb, so I figured he was probably picking up some weakness on the
part of the hen.
An isolation coop is a
sort of time out for everyone involved. It’s a cool, quiet place
where your picked on bird can heal from her wounds and build back her
spunk — a spare coop or chicken
tractor works well, but seriously injured birds can even be put in
a cardboard box. This is one of the reasons we like to have a
spare chicken waterer
around — you can just toss some food on the ground for the loner each
day, but she’ll need fresh, clean water to regain her strength.
If the hen recovers
enough, she can be reintegrated into the flock. Chickens
naturally pick on weak or sick members, but they generally forget their
bad feelings if the hen reappears a week later, back in tip-top
health. Unfortunately, in many cases, the problem doesn’t heal,
in which case you have to choose whether to keep a loner hen around or
cull her for the good of the flock. Our hen is still in the
rehabilitation stage — hopefully next week, we’ll see if she’s ready
for reintegration.
Chicken isolation coop
Related Posts
About The Author
Anna & Mark
Anna Hess and Mark Hamilton are a pair of back-to-the-landers who have been homesteading for over a decade.
If you can keep it dark it would be perfect for a broody hen to hatch eggs.
Daddy — It is a bit dim in there. But all of our hens decided to stop going broody, so I think we’ll have to try again next year!
I’m a new chicken owner of one bantam & I’d like to add two more chickens. We can only have 3 in San Francisco. Does it make a difference if I get 2 big hens that aren’t bantams (but will be chicks)? Do you just release the chicks into the coop when they’re old enough and keep watch? I’d hate to see my bantam hurt. Thanks!
Tracy — It can be tough to integrate new chickens into a flock, especially as chicks. If I were you, I’d raise the chicks separately until they’re around the same size as the bantam, then let them into her space. Since she’s smaller than them, she’s likely to be lowest on the pecking order, but if you bring them to her rather than vice versa, it should help. Good luck!