There is drama in chicken land. Has to do with the new rooster….and men say women are all about drama…breeding the chickens. He finally decided that was his job and right away he was too hard on my white chicken and pulled out feathers on her neck causing her neck to bleed.

Chickens and blood are not a good combination since they all think that they need to peck at it. Pretty soon the other chickens were pecking at the poor white one, so she needed to be removed before they killed her.

I put her in the hot box to heal which went really well for her. It took about a week or so, and the scabs were gone and everything was good. The problem with a single chicken though,is that they are very hard to incorporate back into the flock. The other hens will all gang up and pick at her relentlessly. I normally incorporate more than one bird to ease the stress and “picking” habit.

But, I put her in to see what would happen, and it didn’t look too bad, so I left her there for a few hours. When I came back to check on her she was in the corner being picked on and laying like she was dead. Thankfully she was fine; she was just protecting her head. They had pulled out more of her neck feathers and came close to drawing more blood so back she went into the hot box for a little longer.

My mom told me that in the old days people would “paint” their chickens with kerosene or something that smelled bad to keep the other birds away. Has anyone heard of anything like that? Any suggestions for me?