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Hello Pete, and welcome to BYC! :frow Glad you joined.

ChookaPete said:
I cured her broodiness by placing some fertilised eggs underneath her.
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Just to clarify, this isn't curing broodiness. It is promoting it to completion.

I have a confession to make. I read snippets here and there of your very long thread about Chamomile getting bullied. By just looking at the pictures I'm going out on a limb and saying that she is being kept at the bottom of the pecking order because A - she doesn't have the forceful personality to push back and B - she looks completely different from her flock mates. You may want to consider getting 2 white leghorns or white any other breed to raise within view of the flock and integrate into the flock. You will more than likely find that the new comers will eventually hang with her. The saying 'birds of a feather flock together' has a lot of truth.
But fair warning, Chamomile will initially treat the youngest ones the harshest when they are growing up because she will be trying to maintain status over them. I've observed that the lowest ranking birds in a flock are always the nastiest to growing pullets.
 
DobieLover said:
Hello Pete, and welcome to BYC! :frow Glad you joined.


Just to clarify, this isn't curing broodiness. It is promoting it to completion.

I have a confession to make. I read snippets here and there of your very long thread about Chamomile getting bullied. By just looking at the pictures I'm going out on a limb and saying that she is being kept at the bottom of the pecking order because A - she doesn't have the forceful personality to push back and B - she looks completely different from her flock mates. You may want to consider getting 2 white leghorns or white any other breed to raise within view of the flock and integrate into the flock. You will more than likely find that the new comers will eventually hang with her. The saying 'birds of a feather flock together' has a lot of truth.
But fair warning, Chamomile will initially treat the youngest ones the harshest when they are growing up because she will be trying to maintain status over them. I've observed that the lowest ranking birds in a flock are always the nastiest to growing pullets.
Click to expand...

Hello, thanks for your advice!


Yes, the thread is very long, sorry. I tried to explain everything in detail, and have provided updates to even the last few minutes of typing this sentence.


Thank you too for the correction about broodiness - indeed I was promoting it to completion. It was the stockfeed shop lady that offered me five free fertilised eggs when I explained my Clover was broody. In fact, just before and when Clover was broody, she was bullied as well but instead just pecked at harshly whenever she tried to eat from the feeder box or have a drink of water. She was the smallest chicken from the start.

I was told some time after Chamomile hatched that she was from a clutch of Leghorn eggs. Sadly, she was the only one that hatched - I did the candling trick after she hatched and the remaining eggs were solid yolk (fertilised but had not grown into chicks). So I placed them under a tree on a side of a hill outside town and had a minute's silence for them. If they hatched too, Chamomile would have had some sisters (and maybe brothers), so yes she wouldn't be alone.

I had hoped that her surrogate mother Chamomile would stick up for her, but she as well is rather timid. It is just strange though that for months now Chamomile integrated quite well into the flock, and only now something must have changed and she is being targeted.


As of this minute, Chamomile is sleeping in the coop with Clover and Coriander, and will be kept in the backyard for at least the next few days. The two bully chooks Cardamom and Cumin are sleeping in the front yard where they will stay for at least a few days. I blocked the access between the two yards.

How long would I need to keep the two sub-flocks separated to reset the pecking order?

Or do I have to get another Leghorn/white chicken to pair up with Chamomile?
 

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