Thursday 31 March 2011

Hen Pecked and Rooster Ruffled

Since introducing Raj to the flock, a number of the chickens have started to get quite bald backs. Mostly this is due to Raj mounting the chickens and being a bit rough. Early on, the chickens also had bloody combs from Raj holding them down.

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Mostly, this appears to happen with the older hens, apparently, Raj’s favourite chicks (pardon the pun). I have seen a couple of other chicken keepers make jackets for their hens when this happens. Although, my chickens aren’t in any kind of distress from their loss of feathers, I expect that they will be getting pretty cold as it is coming into winter here in Tasmania.

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Above is a picture of our own MF-Junior. He is the son of MF (munt-foot). You can see that he has quite severe toe curl, however, the condition certainly doesn’t affect his performance as a junior rooster, he protects the girls and gets the occasional sneaky “alone time” with the hens that Raj isn’t watching.

I will be making some simple chicken jackets for my hens so that they can be protected from the cold. I had better make some extras so that I can wash them periodically.

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