Hens killed 12 week old pullet

[Bigplantnerd]

I have (had) three 1.5 year old novagen brown hens. Very friendly, they free range most of the day and have a 5x5 coop and 6x10 run for evenings. At the end of july I picked up two six week old whiting true blue pullets. For a month I housed the chicks in a 5x5 run right next to the larger run. The big girls were angry at first but soon started ignoring them. Two weeks ago I let the young ones out to free range with the hens, a little squawking but no major fights, they continued to stay in their small pen at night.
This past Saturday at dusk I put the pullets in with the hens for the night. Everyone seemed fine. Sunday morning one of my older hens was dead on her back. No signs of struggle or predation, had been fine all day before. Yesterday the remaining older hens attacked one of the young pullets. She seemed freaked out and stunned after but not bloody or missing feathers. I separated the chicks back to their house for the night and sadly the attacked pullet died overnight.

I am thinking it best to rehome the remaining pullet and just wait for these other birds to get old and die rather than attempting to add more chicks again. Im so dissapointed in myself, im going from five chickens to two in two days after a great year and a half.

does anyone have any thoughts or advice otherwise?

 

[Mrs. K]

Hmmm, I would have expected that to work. It can be tricky with small groups, but you have space and spent the time. I think I would try pin less peepers on the old gals before I quit all together.

 

[I have chickens21]

What breed are the pullets?

 

[Bigplantnerd]

Whiting true blue

 

[Muser]

What I did to introduce 2 young hens into an existing flock of 3 older hens was to do as you did, let them see and not touch for a month, then I let my hens, one at a time over the fence to meet the new ones. Once they had a little tussle, put the older hen back over the fence, wait 30mins and pass another hen over. Do this for a few days and when they are all let out they have already established the pecking order more gently and with no ganging up on the younger hens. There will be some squabbles but shouldn't be blood. If they do get a bit aggressive, it's easier to grab your one older hen and move her back into the other area. Hope that helps

 

[Bigplantnerd]

What I did to introduce 2 young hens into an existing flock of 3 older hens was to do as you did, let them see and not touch for a month, then I let my hens, one at a time over the fence to meet the new ones. Once they had a little tussle, put the older hen back over the fence, wait 30mins and pass another hen over. Do this for a few days and when they are all let out they have already established the pecking order more gently and with no ganging up on the younger hens. There will be some squabbles but shouldn't be blood. If they do get a bit aggressive, it's easier to grab your one older hen and move her back into the other area. Hope that helps

I'm concerned now that there is just one surviving pullet she will be a very obvious target.

 

[Bigplantnerd]

Ive been what i thought was careful and reading about so many successes with this process and "chicken math". I think my chicken owning days will come to an end when the two novagens finish up.

 

[Muser]

I'm concerned now that there is just one surviving pullet she will be a very obvious target.

You know what's best for your flock This was just an example of how I introduced fewer hens into an established flock and my experience, might not work for everybody

 

[rosemarythyme]

Very difficult to say what happened, as it all sounded like it was going well until the hen died, and we don't have a cause of death for her. There certainly can be some tussling around when new birds move into a coop but this is certainly an unusual case for the attack to progress to this degree.

So sorry that things didn't work out better. Only thing I could advise for this time is to maybe fence off half the coop so the surviving pullet can safely coop up for the time being (assuming you keep her), and progress from there.

 

[Bigplantnerd]

Very difficult to say what happened, as it all sounded like it was going well until the hen died, and we don't have a cause of death for her. There certainly can be some tussling around when new birds move into a coop but this is certainly an unusual case for the attack to progress to this degree.

So sorry that things didn't work out better. Only thing I could advise for this time is to maybe fence off half the coop so the surviving pullet can safely coop up for the time being (assuming you keep her), and progress from there.

I almost wonder if the disruption was so much that my existing hen was attacked or too stressed leading to her death. Of the three she was the outlier, with my tiny alpha pearl and her big sidekick Molly being a pair. They were all hatchmates but merida rip tended to kind of hang on her own a bit more. I did find a new flock for the baby, so I'll just hang with thing one and thing two until they go to their reward. They both wanted me to love on them today, but they are stalking that babies pen like velociraptors. Pacing pacing pacing and trying to force their heads into the wire. They want to kill her too. They have also gone after the dogs and cornered the corgi.
Is this a Red sex link thing? Or do I just have really mean hens?