Roo not being nice to new chicken

[Ruler of the Roost]

So at the moment my chickens have mostly decided to roost on top of the run. I am building a new coop anyways, so I’m kind of dealing with it until that new coop is done. I ended up adopting two leghorn hens and I put them in the run and shut the rest of the birds out. Gave them two weeks like that where they could interact without being able to fight. Put the leghorns in gen-pop and the rooster began attacking them. I tried to keep them separated, but within three days both leghorns disappeared. I found one northern a week later nocturnally feeding when alpha, the rooster, was asleep. She had a hige scab and a bunch of missing feathers on the back of her head. I caught her and brought her inside. I have her in a 2 sqft cage and she seems fine outside of the fact that she is not currently laying. I intend to keep her inside until her head heals. It’s pretty gnarly looking, but she’s acting normal. Did I do something wrong? What else can I do?

 

[Ruler of the Roost]

Oh. I do put her in the guest bathroom a couple hours a day. Keeps her safe from all other animals and she can stretch her legs a bit.

 

[Lacy Duckwing]

I would rehome (for food) or cull the rooster. This is not normal behavior for a rooster, and with the roosters who have done something similar, they will peck the hens to death. This is nothing you did wrong, but it's on the rooster and he needs to go. (I had a rooster who was aggressive like this, despite not being that way at first, and he severely injured two of my hens, one of which he tried killing.)

On this girl, clean her head with a Saline rinse 2-3 times a day until she heals. You can put Neosporin (without pain reliever) on her wound after cleaning it, but don't put too much on that it'll drain into her eyes. Keep her separated from the flock until her wound is healed. Warning, depending how bad her wound is, don't be surprised if she doesn't grow any feathers back there.

 

[Cinnamon Roll]

I had an experience similar to this, my rooster started attcking just one of my two new hens. On close inspection, she was covered in poultry lice... As soon as I treated everyone and the lice were gone, he accepted her.

If you can verify that the new hen doesn't have parasites, I would definitely do as @Lacy Duckwing suggests and get rid of that rooster.

 

[Ruler of the Roost]

I would rehome (for food) or cull the rooster. This is not normal behavior for a rooster, and with the roosters who have done something similar, they will peck the hens to death. This is nothing you did wrong, but it's on the rooster and he needs to go. (I had a rooster who was aggressive like this, despite not being that way at first, and he severely injured two of my hens, one of which he tried killing.)

On this girl, clean her head with a Saline rinse 2-3 times a day until she heals. You can put Neosporin (without pain reliever) on her wound after cleaning it, but don't put too much on that it'll drain into her eyes. Keep her separated from the flock until her wound is healed. Warning, depending how bad her wound is, don't be surprised if she doesn't grow any feathers back there.

I have been treating the wound with hydrogen peroxide and neosporin. Its what I have and so far she seems to be responding well to the treatments. Its hard to say one way or the other, but that big black spot is one giant scab. I have been considering culling the rooster. The coop I am building is going to be for a much larger flock. It is going to be 200 sqft with around 20 nesting boxes and is going to have an 1100 sqft run. Mostly just a large experiment on my part as I learn more about this hobby. I'll hopefully have the coop ready to move them in around the time Whitey finishes healing. I have a dog kennel that is large enough for a large dog. My plan is, at this point, to put Whitey in the dog kennel inside the new coop when I put all the birds in there and try the two week cycle again that way. Maybe with all of the changes it will be easier for Alpha to accept the new bird. If not, he'll unfortunately find his way to pasture. I am hoping that there is some aspect I am missing to my attempts to integrate Tighty and Whitey into the flock, and doing it with a new coop and other changes will throw enough change into the mix at once that he'll accept it.

 

[Cinnamon Roll]

Don't use hydrogen peroxide on a healing wound. It will kill the new cells. The Neosporin is good though.

 

[Ruler of the Roost]

Don't use hydrogen peroxide on a healing wound. It will kill the new cells. The Neosporin is good though.

understood

 

[Lacy Duckwing]

Don't use hydrogen peroxide on a healing wound. It will kill the new cells. The Neosporin is good though.

2x this. Hydrogen Peroxide is good for the first cleaning, but after that, you should always use the Saline rinse.

 

[Ruler of the Roost]

Whitey is doing better. Scab is reducing, some of the feathers are starting to grow back. She's started laying again. The wife and I talked it out. After the new coop is up and the rest of the flock is moved, we are going to keep the old coop in service a bit longer for her to live in while I construct a second coop. The second coop was already in the plans, we're going to have once coop dedicated to egg production, and another dedicated strictly to breeding specific breeds. Since Leghorns are one of the birds we want to specifically breed, Whitey will fit in nicely there as a matron figure...

 

[Ruler of the Roost]

Whitey is doing better. Scab is reducing, some of the feathers are starting to grow back. She's started laying again. The wife and I talked it out. After the new coop is up and the rest of the flock is moved, we are going to keep the old coop in service a bit longer for her to live in while I construct a second coop. The second coop was already in the plans, we're going to have once coop dedicated to egg production, and another dedicated strictly to breeding specific breeds. Since Leghorns are one of the birds we want to specifically breed, Whitey will fit in nicely there as a matron figure...

...I mean...what if the rooster was never the problem? I moved Whitey back into the coop and locked Alpha out...I've never seen her do it before but she was chasing one of the smaller hens off of her nest...one of Alphas offspring...and that's when Alpha came running. Of course he can't get to her now... but the picture is starting to make more sense.