Can you eat the eggs if treating hens with Blu-Kote? And any suggestions for extreme pecking?

[Horse Chick]

I'm currently treating 5 of my 9 hens with Blu-Kote as we have a bully (she has been removed and is on her way to the pot) who decided to get all pecky nasty on the other girls yesterday. This is the second time she has done this but no second chances for her. All 9 are laying but I've heard you shouldn't eat the eggs if treating with Blu-Kote. I applied it to 3 on their backs as that is where they were bald and bleeding and the other 2 near their vents which they are in bad shape and have been removed, recuperating in small dog crates individually. It makes sense I may not want to eat the eggs of the ones with the pecked vent areas but how about the ones on the backs? I can't tell who lays what outside so I'll get no eggs for how long if I'm not able to eat them with this medication?

I now only have one "normal" looking Orp out of five. I have four Barred Rocks and one is in bad shape with her vent area being pecked quite severely. The offender is a BR.

 

[willowbranchfarm]

This is what I found.


This is a site that has the Blue Cote spray

http://www.horsesuppliesdirect.com.au/prod409.htm

True Blue II spray is a medicated lotion that gives instant relief to stubborn chafes, skin abrasions, saddle or harness galls. True Blue Spray is quick drying, penetrates with antiseptic and antifungal qualities.

Directions for Use:
Spray affected area by depressing spray pump firmly. No applicator necessary. Repeat daily, or twice daily until healing is complete.

There is absolutely nothing in it that will contaminate the birds flesh or eggs

***

Regarding your problem with the pecking of the bird

When you say she was wet... how much did you put on her, they may have been pecking her because she was wet

How long was she away from the flock

And the fact that they were already attacking her to remove her beard by pecking indicates they have some sort of vendetta against her

Is she a different color to the other birds
What is so different with her from the others, many birds will attack a bird they feel isn't like them, or they don't like the color of her feathers

If they were attacking her before and now attacking her even worse then you may have to isolate her into a separate enclosure to live you life out, and maybe get some other birds that are like her

 

[Horse Chick]

Hi Willowbranch,
The hen that was so savagely attacked is one of four Plymouth Barred Rocks and then I have five Buff Orpingtons. Two of the Rocks are very black with not much white and the other two (the injured one and another) are more white than black so there are two matching pairs if you will. The attacker is one of the darker Rocks.

The Rock that is injured had never been pecked before, at least not to where I could see any evidence of it. This happened yesterday as I have a habit of checking all nine birds daily since the first incident a month ago. As soon as I saw all the blood I took her out, she was actually hiding in the coop and the others were outside under the coop, the only place with no snow. The attacker is the most beautiful of the flock because of course no one picks on her.

This morning I went out to find that another Buff Orp was bald near her vent but not bleeding. I took her out anyway, haven't treated her yet but she is in the basement now with the other two. All the basement birds are in small dog crates, so they are separated. A few of the Orps still outside that had been pecked on their backs before had more feathers missing, again all since yesterday, so I Blu-Koted their bare spots but left them outside. I keep going outside to observe and have not seen more pecking yet so I think I have the one that started it. I've given up on her and have made arrangements to have her "dressed" on Wednesday so she will not be a problem for us or anyone else. These hens are pets but also livestock. We recently doubled their pen size, I give them daily produce in addition to grain, BOSS, scratch, mealworms every 2nd or 3rd day and out to free range only on weekends for about an hour or two because we don't really have the place to free range more.

Nine hens in a 4x8 coop is a bit tight, now we'll be down to eight so that is 4 feet per hen, hoping that helps. Pen is 8 feet by 16 feet with another 4x8 under the coop.

It's good to hear the Blu-Kote shouldn't interfere with hens' eggs. I still won't eat the eggs from the two with the bald and bloody vents until they heal but don't want to loose all the egg production.

 

[20736]

I have had this problem off and on for 25 years. Some birds just get the urge to peck the other bird(s).
Now the last time, I discovered that the pecker (no pun intended) had feather mites! Once I treated that, the pecking stopped.
However, that is the only time I found a cause and was able to treat it.
Sometimes, I remove the victim; sometimes the offender. Sometimes I reintroduce them and everything is fine; sometimes not.
Right now I have one Jap rooster that gets pecked because he starts the incident, then hides in a hole and they peck his butt which is sticking out.
So, I guess I'm saying look for causes in the coop like mites,etc. and if no visible sign, then separate and reintroduce to each other later.

 

[Horse Chick]

I looked for reasons, no mites, no lice on any of the girls, even the offender. We expanded their pen which used to be only 8 feet by 12 feet. We gave them another 8x8 foot area and the pen is 7 feet high now with tree branches and a 2x4 perch outside to play on. They get chicken ball treat dispensers to push around and play with, produce to eat, BOSS, etc. We thought it was boredom but the offending hen is getting aggressive again even with me so in the pot she's going this week! Still watching the others to be sure all are playing nice. So far today so good. Wondering if the cold weather is the catalyst as this happened when it got cold a month ago. We just had our first snow, 10 inches. I shoveled much of it out of the pen but some was packed down and will need to melt. They do have a 4x8 area under the coop that is still dry and sandy. We don't have any power to the coop so no heat inside, though whenever I look in on them at night they seem comfortable, no puffy feathers and their perches are 2x3's with the 3 inch side to perch on so they can cover their feet. Am debating about putting an extension cord out there to keep their water from freezing as that just started happening the past two days, just overnight....I refresh in coop (which only froze for first time last night) and under coop outside every morning and it stays well until after sun goes down.

 

[Horse Chick]

I will say after observing for hours today, the remaining 6 hens outside are quite content, pecking the ground, clucking softly and got 4 eggs today. So far so good for no pluckers in this group. We'll see what happens when the too injured are returned but that will be a while. So we'll be down to 8 total once everyone is re-introduced. I think the very badly injured girl will make it, she's alert and eating.

Also spent that time outside cleaning the coop completely out, blood was everywhere! So apparently the worst of the attacks happen in the coop. Would total darkness do this? The windows we have are not clear, so when they are closed for the cold nights they are not letting any light in when the sun rises. Perhaps I should replace the wooden doors with plexi glass?